


Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

by Mad_Maudlin



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alabama, Angry Sex, Betrayal, Cats, Chess, Crime, Crush, Humor, Kansas City, M/M, Rivalslash, St. Louis, crocodile farm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:42:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 42,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Maudlin/pseuds/Mad_Maudlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco Malfoy's life takes a turn for the traumatic when he's kidnapped by Ron Weasley to protect him from an murderous foe he's never heard of. With friends like these, who needs enemies?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (A Prologue)

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when my mind is allowed to go out and play by itself. Thanks go out to [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/lumaria/profile)[**lumaria**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/lumaria/) and [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/prillalar/profile)[**prillalar**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/prillalar/) for general assistance, all of [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/hp_fic_sprint/profile)[**hp_fic_sprint**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/hp_fic_sprint/) for cheerleading, and to [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/linnet_melody/profile)[**linnet_melody**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/linnet_melody/) for...damn. Everything. Without her, this story would not exist, period. Go worship at her feet for a bit, k?

`TO: A. Dawson  
FROM: Q. Sniggle  
RE: Case #5223-5653231-22365-ARH (D. D. Malfoy)`

`We asked Malfoy to write up his version of events and this is what he produced. I don't know what to think of it, except that it clashes with Agent Weasley's story in a few rather noteworthy places. Take a look and tell me whether you'd let this guy out of custody.`

`CC: manuscript`


	2. In which I am kidnapped by a mad bomber playing at mixology

You will pardon me for failing to recognize Weasley when I first laid eyes on him. For one thing, he played a central part in certain incidents from my adolescence that I had spent the better part of my twenties trying diligently to forget. For another, I hadn't seen him in seven yearsample time for the particular details of his hideous freckled face to fade somewhat from my memory. And for a third thing (as if one were necessary) he was impersonating the bartender, so it is a miracle I even noticed he existed.

I wouldn't have gone to the bar if the party had not been so stultifying, in fact, so I intend to blame my hosts for the whole fiasco. They were Mr. and Mrs. Elwood Q. Stiffle of Kansas City, and I shall shortly be sending them a hex. It was perhaps a sign of how low my estate had fallen that I was even socializing with such excuses for wizards as these, but one does what one must; Mr. Stiffle was a member of the board of a business I was very interested in acquiring, and if I had any hope of persuading them to sell I had to make nice-nice with a man who reminded me of nothing more than a enormous bearded blancmange.

"Tennis, Mr. Malfoy," he was saying just prior to the onset of the entire fiasco. "Have y'ever heard of a game called _tennis?"_

"Oh, don't start with the tennis, dear," Mrs. Stiffle said.

"Why not?" Mr. Stiffle boomed. "Lovely game, tennis. Muggle game."

Mrs. Stiffle snorted. "It's entirely pointless."

"It is not!"

"You run around in short pants whacking a little bird with a paddle."

"It's called a _racket,_ and the bird isn't real, it's that...whatchamacallit...Muggle stuff..."

"Plastic?" I offered.

Stiffle slapped his thigh with his hands and laughed like I'd just said something immensely entertaining. "That's the ticket! You know something about tennis, Mr. Malfoy?"

"No," I said, with half a hope that this might end the conversation, "I'm afraid not."

"Well, maybe they don't have it on the Continent. It's a wonderful game, tennis. Very stimulating."

"Excuse me," I said, "I think I need another drink."

I ignored the house-elves with the champagne trays and went straight to the bar. I leaned against it, watching a pack of badly dressed Americans who thought that referring to Europe as "the Continent" qualified them for entry into the upper class gleefully schmooze with one another. Perhaps no one is ever exactly where they anticipated they would be at the age of twenty-five, but I certainly had never believed I would be spending my nights sucking up to a blancmange in short pants. It was all terribly depressing.

"Can you get you anything, sir?" the bartender asked.

"Vodka martini."

"Coming right up."

At this juncture I would like to answer those who have alleged that I am completely oblivious to everything that goes on around me. This is slander. I had indeed noted the existence of the bartender previously in the evening, because going out and hiring human help when there's an excess of house elves on hand is just the sort of tacky bourgeoisie thing that people like Stiffle did for parties. I had noticed that the bartender was male, tall, and brunette, with broad shoulders and a nice arse. The sort of bloke I might've picked up after the festivities, under other circumstances. But, honestly, what do you expect me to dohe was a bloody _servant._ Aside from improving the décor and giving me alcohol, he was utterly insignificant. It's a miracle I even noticed his arse.

"Lovely weather out, isn't it," the bartended said while he mixed my martini

"I suppose." I do not enjoy making small talk with servants, but among Americans it seems to be expected. Howeverdespite the slurs of my detractorsI had noticed something unusual about this servant, though I could not have immediately said what it was.

"There you are, sir." I heard the glass click down near my elbow and turned around to pick it up. "Enjoy it while you can."

I looked up at the bartender and I blinked. I suddenly realized what was out of placehis accent was English. A very low class English, but all the sameEnglish accents are difficult to come by in a place like Kansas City. "Excuse me?"

The bartended smiled the vapid smile endemic to the service sector. "I said enjoy your drink."

For a moment I staredthere was something terribly familiar about that smilebut I shook my head and began to walk away from the bar. I was overtired, depressed, probably suffering from some sort of polyester poisoning; I was liable to mistake a potted plant for an old schoolmate next.

"I wouldn't go over there if I were you, sir," the bartender said.

I paused and looked back. "Why not?"

"A bomb is about to go off."

I stared at him for several moments, waiting for the punch line. He kept smiling. "A bomb, did you say?"

"Oh, yes. In just a few minutes."

I set my drink down very carefully on the bar, because I had a feeling that adding alcohol to this situation was not going to help things. "And how do you know about this, exactly?"

"Because I planted it."

"...I see." I looked around the room, but it was still tacky, so I assumed that I wasn't dreaming. "And, er, why did you do this, exactly?"

"To help get your sorry arse out of here."

I stared at him; he'd stopped smiling, and that vague sense of familiarity became stronger. His face, something about his face...an extraordinary nose, a somewhat weak chin, blue eyes, and a prodigious amount of freckles...his hair was brown, but his eyebrows were lighter, almost reddish....

No. It couldn't be. Oh, bloody buggering hell, it _was_. "Weasley?"

He smiled again, not the dumb servant smile, but something rather more knowing. "Took you long enough, didn't it?"

"Weasley, what the _hell_ are you doing here?"

"Tending bar."

"And planting bombs?"

"Keep your voice down!"

"I most certainly will not!"

I was not, for the record, hysterical. It was just that I had gotten used to the universe working in an orderly fashion, and discovering the Ronald Weasley was a mad bomber playing at mixology does not meet my definition of 'orderly. I had not come to this horrible party to relive my last year of Hogwarts

"Keep your voice down and drink your drink," Weasley said firmly, and pushed my martini at me.

I picked it up, put it to my lips and then put it back down again. "Weasley, what are you doing in America?"

"Tending bar," he said, "and kidnapping you."

_"What? _Why?"

"Let's just say your friends at Greenplate and Company don't appreciate being ratted on."

I stared at him, but there was still no punch line. "Weasley, I can confidently say I have no idea what you are talking about."

"We'll discuss it later." He checked his watch. "You might want to duck now."

"Why would I?" Oh, yes, the bomb. I dove to the floor and covered my head just as the mirror behind the bar exploded in a cloud of fire and smoke.

The rest of the guests reacted more or less as usualscreaming, running, fits of hysterics. I considered attempting to escape with them. But then Weasley's head, left arm and upper torso emerged from the side of the solid oak bar, seized my arm, and half-dragged me through the concealed passage before I even had a chance to draw my wand.

Behind the bar was just as bad; the alcohol supply had mostly caught fire and was burning dramatically. "I thought you said the bomb was over there!" I said, trying to avoid igniting any bits of myself.

"I didn't say that," Weasley said, "I said you didn't want to go over there."

"But the bomb was over here!"

"And if you'd left the bar area after I tripped it countdown, this would've all blown up for nothing, now _shut it."_

Weasley had shrugged off his outer layer of robes; he was wearing Muggle clothes underneath. It was strangely comforting to see him sweat (though that may have been from the fire) and gnawing his lower lip as he peered around wildly: crazy people, in my experience, do not get flustered. Weasley transfigured his robes into a surprisingly good approximation of a blackened corpse, sat back on his heels for a moment, then nodded. "Care to let me on in the secret?" I asked. "Before we end up cooked to a crisp?"

He glared. "Follow me."

"Why should I?"

"I'm a friend of Tobias O'Guin."

"Which means what, exactly?"

"Malfoy"

"You're trying to kidnap me, Weasley, you just bombed an innocent idiot's bar"

He seized me by the front of the robes and pulled me after him, straight through a sheet of flame. I cringed and braced myself for the worst, but I felt no more than a rather unpleasant tickling sensation, and then we were though. Magical fire, then, or a badly cast Flame-Freezing charm.

He let go of my robes before I could get my balance properly, and I came precariously close to falling on my face. "Weasley," I hissed, trying to right myself, "Weasley, what the hell sort of a bomb was that"

"You can stop talking any time, Malfoy," he growled. He'd stopped in front of what looked like a barrel of mulled mead, jabbing at it with his wand. The stamp on the side began to swirl and change colors.

"I think I have a right" A bottle exploded next to my head, and I ducked; I felt pieces of glass hit my face, but not the razor-sharp bite I'd been anticipating. Looking down, I noticed that I was in fact kneeling without ill effect in a large pile of broken glass. I picked up a piece gingerly, ran my finger across what should've been the razor-sharp edge, then tasted it.

"Sugar." This was unreal. "You transfigured all the glass into sugar."

Weasley ignored me; he wrestled with the lid of the barrel, then pulled it free entirely, spilling a tide of mead onto his trousers and the floor. "Aha! Bloody password..." He waved his wand in my direction. "In you go."

"In a barrel?"

"It's a way out."

"What, are you going to conjure a waterfall?"

He growled. "It's a passage, you stupid arse, now get in."

"I'm not entirely sure," I said, "that a wooden barrel in a puddle of alcohol is the safest place to be right now," because I was still holding out some hope of escape, which would be bloody difficult if Weasley sealed me into a barrel.

Weasley seized me by the front of my robes again. "Listen, Malfoy, I spiked that martini with a slow-acting poison, and if you don't get the antidote in the next fifteen minutes you're going to be rolling around on the floor, trying to rip out your own guts from the pain. That antidote is on the other end of this passage. Is that perfectly clear?"

"Crystal," I said, reeling. Sugar glass, cool fire, and virulent poisonwhat a beautiful combination.

A second explosion rocked the building to its very foundation. Sugar bottles crashed all around us both, and more smokethicker, darkerbegan to fill the room. "What the hell was that?" I demanded, briefly forgetting the poison.

Weasley climbed to his feet and peered over the edge of the bar, squinting against the smoke. His face went alarmingly white. "Dies."

"What? What dies?"

"Get in the fucking barrel, _now."_

Something about his tone of voicenamely, the note of unadulterated panicsuggested to me that I'd pushed him about as far as he would go. I crawled into the barrel; it was entirely dark, redolent of spices and alcohol, and Weasley didn't give me a chance to _find_ my wand, much less light it, before he started shoving me forward. The wet wood under my hands suddenly gave way to rough stone, though, and a faint breeze wicked away the vapors stinging my eyes. I felt Weasley wedge himself into the barrel behind me, and the last rays of light disappeared as he fitted the lid back on. "Where are we?"

"Under the building. Keep going forward."

I crawled forward a few feet, and the stone changed to wet earth. These robes, I thought, are completely ruined. When, Weasley lit his wand, I could see the rough tunnel that wound forward into darkness. "How far does this tunnel go?"

"Two blocks."

"You expect me to crawl"

"Yes," Weasley said, "I expect you to crawl two blocks, and I expect you to shut up, and I expect you to do everything _else _I say, because I just saved your miserable life."

I stopped and tried to look behind me. "From what?"

"You think that other bomb was there for shits and giggles?"

"You mean you didn't plant that one?" I hadn't thought so, but hope springs eternal.

"Of course I didn't fucking plant it! It was probably Dies's way of saying thanks."

"Who is Dies?"

Weasley sighed. "Malfoy, don't play stupid with me."

"I've never heard of any Dies! Why the hell would he want to kill me?"

There was a silence, and I peered between my legs; Weasley's eyes were closed, and I had the impression he was slowly counting. Then he said, "Malfoy, look. My job is just to get you out of there and deliver you to headquarters. If you could please make this as painless as possible for both of us?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't see why I should make things easy on the man trying to kidnap me."

Weasley did an extraordinary thing then: he put his hand on my arse and shoved. I fell on my face and got a lovely mouthful of dirt. "Because if you don't, the man trying to kidnap you is going to Stun you and drag you the rest of the way by your hair."

I pushed myself back up on all fours, spitting dirt and wishing him a thousand painful deaths. "There's no need to get _Neanderthal_ here..."

We crawled. My hands went numb. So did my knees. The tunnel was significantly longer than two blocksit zigged and zagged, dove and climbed precariously. Muddy water had collected in the low spots, yellowish-brown, and Weasley gave me no time or opportunity to navigate around it. A small stone embedded itself in my palm, and my nails were encrusted with mud and the fine roots of plants. Weasley shoved me whenever he thought I wasn't moving quickly enough, which was not exactly the circumstances under which I would've like to have him touching my arse. All in all the whole experience was quite traumatizing; I hope to eventually have the chance to inflict it on some of my worst enemies.

Finally the tunnel ended: it bored straight through solid concrete and came out in a small, cramped metal tube. Weasley shoved his way past me, which is a lot more painful and unpleasant than it sounds, given that the tunnel was only about three feet across; I am quite certain he deliberately put his knee in my stomach. He jabbed at the sides of the tube with his wand for what seemed like ages and ages, until a hatch swung open near the ground.

"After you," he said, rummaging around in his pockets.

So I squeezed past himvery deliberately treading on his toesand through the hatch. It came out into the dim, dingy basement of some godforsaken building, full of rubbish and dust. I went for my wand before I could even straighten my aching knees, wondering if I could or should DisapparateWeasley obviously knew more about the situation than I did, and I always believe in knowing your enemies.

I jumped when a series of echoing explosions began behind me. The metal tube, I realized, was a broken hot-water heater: a cloud of dirt and Weasley emerged from the hatch. "What is it with you and high explosives?" I asked.

"I was collapsing the tunnel behind us." He looked at my wand, which I'd pointed at him, and sighed. "Malfoy, don't start..."

"Start what?" I shouted. I was dirty, sore, and kidnapped, and not feeling particularly charitable. _"You _seem to have done all the starting by randomly kidnapping me!"

"Like I said, I'm a friend of Tobias O'Guin," he said, in the sort of mock-soothing voice people use on children and animals. "I'll explain everything else in the car."

"What car?"

"The car that's waiting for us upstairs."

"Ha. Yes. You'd like that, wouldn't you?" I advanced on him slowly; his failure to look alarmed was bothering me. "Pardon me if I'm disinclined to get into a car with a kidnapper..."

He shrugged and shook his head. "Why do I bloody bother?" he asked the ceiling, then turned on his heel and started to walk away.

"Hey!" I shouted; this was _not_ what he was meant to be doing. "Hey, come back here, I haven't asked you any questions!"

"I'll answer them in the car," he called over his shoulder, "if you're coming."

He was opening a heavy steel door set into the wall, he was fucking _walking away_ from me. I started to say _"Impedime"_

_"Expelliarmus!"_

My wand zipped from my hand to his; he waved it at me, smiled, and stepped out the door.

I considered, for a brief moment, staying where I was out of sheer spite. Surely he'd come back after me in a moment, he'd gone to all this trouble to kidnap me, he wasn't about to just let me wander off in some strange...basement, and possibly get away. I paced a bit, and trying to brush some of the disgusting yellow mud from my clothes. Weasley didn't come back. Damn him, damn him, _damn him..._

I shot through the steel door and stumbled up the concrete stairs outside it, into a glum and rain-damp alley. "All right, Weasley, give me back"

_"Shut the fuck up."_

Weasley was standing in the middle of the alley, staring about wildly, revolving slowly in place. I realized after a moment what was wrong with the situation: there were several large dumpsters in the alley, and a large quantity of garbage, and a scavenging cat, but there was definitely not anything that one might hope to classify as a _car._

"Lose something, Weasley?" I asked.

He raked his fingers through his hair, staining his fingers brown, still staring. "We've got a bit of a problem."


	3. In which Weasley is insane and I am forced to walk. A lot.

"What do you mean," I asked very slowly, _"we_ have a bit of a problem?"

Weasley waved his hands vaguely around the alley. "No car."

"I can _see_ that, thank you." I didn't like the way he was staring pop-eyed into the semidarkness. It had been comforting in the exploding bar to see him look flustered, because that was proof he was sane. Now it was the precise opposite of comforting, because he had my wand, and he'd just kidnapped me, and in general one expects one's assailants to know what they are doing. "How exactly is this my problem?" I asked.

"It's your problem because _Linnet has everything!"_ he shouted, and raked his fingers through his hair again. I hoped he wasn't getting the brown stuff on my wand. "Clothes, identification, documents, Portkey...she was supposed to be meeting us here..."

"Perhaps she got sick of waiting," I suggested. "How long were we in the bloody tunnel?"

He waved me off, and continued looking up and down the alley, as if the car were simply hiding from him and at any moment would leap out from behind a dustbin and shout _Surprise!_ I stopped to think about my own question, thoughhow long had we been crawling around underground? I hadn't been checking my watch during the party, as much as I'd wanted to, and Weasley had said...he'd said...oh, hell, the _poison._

"Weasley, how long _were_ we in the tunnel?" I demanded. When he ignored me, I grabbed his sleeve and shook him as hard as I could. "How long were we down there?"

"Malfoy, what is your problem?"

_"You poisoned me, you stupid ginger bastard, don't you remember?"_

He blinked at me. Then he laughed. I could've killed him on the spot. "Malfoy, I didn't poison you, calm the hell down."

"You told me"

"I only said that so you'd shut up and do as I asked." He continued to glance around, though without a great deal of enthusiasm.

"Why should I believe you?"

He rolled his eyes. "Because I don't want to kill you, maybe? You didn't even drink any of the martini, so keep your hair on."

I blame this particular lapse on stress. In all that exploding and crawling and things, there wasn't _time_ to remember everything something as trivial as a martini. I stopped, and thought backhe'd given me the drink, he'd told me to stay near the bar, and...and...oh, _bollocks._

When I got my wand back, I was going to _hurt_ him.

But it suddenly occurred to me that we were alone in the alley, and that Weasley's plans, whatever they had been, had clearly been derailed by the disappearance of this Linnet woman. In fact, the only thing standing between me and my freedom was my distinct lack of a wand. I cleared my throat. "So, er, Weasley, sorry this kidnapping thing didn't work out. Better luck next time and all. May I have my wand back?"

He didn't seem to have heard me; he was shuffling around the alley muttering viciously. "I told O'Guin this was a dodgy plan," he announced to a small gay cat that was hunting through an overturned bin. "I told him a direct fucking Portkey would work just as well as the fucking tunnel..."

"Er, Weasley?"

"...stranded in the middle of fucking nowhere...'

"Weasley? Hello? Remember me, your victim?"

He stared intently at the cat, which had found something squishy and disgusting and was proceeding to eat it. "Right," he eventually said, then "right," again, and then he tossed my wand back to me so suddenly I almost failed to catch it. In my defense, it had been a long time since I'd had a chance to play Quidditch, Americans being almost totally ignorant of the sport. Weasley marched towards the entrance of the alley and barked, "Clean yourself off and follow me."

"Sorry, I don't think I shall"

He spun faster than one would expect for a man his size and pointed his wand at my throat with a slightly mad look in his eyes. "We're in deep shit right now, okay, Malfoy?" he hissed. "I don't have time for this."

"Give me one good reason," I asked, "why I should go along with you."

"Because it's my job to keep you alive," he snarled.

"I thought you said you were kidnapping me."

"I am!"

I snorted. "Kidnapping for safety is a bit like fucking for chastity, isn't it?"

Weasley suddenly fished around inside the collar of his t-shirt and pulled out a fine chaina necklace of some kind. It had a Sickle-sized hunk of translucent golden crystal hanging from the end; the pendant was covered with elaborate engraving, though I couldn't make out any details. "I'm a member of the S.J.F. and an authorized agent of the International Confederation of Wizards," he said slowly, and with a distinct growl. "My assignment is to get you into protective custody, hale and healthy or not, before Dies and his goons can shut you up on a permanent basis. I intend to complete this assignment whether you're conscious to participate or not. Do you understand?"

I could only blink at him for few minutes while I worked this through. "You," I said, "are completely insane."

He snarled, like a feral thing, and stuffed the pendent back under his shirt. "Look, Malfoy, you're not accomplishing anything by playing dumb with me. Do you want to wait around here for whoever took off with Agent Linnet and the car to find us? 'Cause I don't."

"Weasley, I'm telling the truth here," I insisted. "Who the hell is this Dies person you keep jabbering about, and what does he want with me?"

"We don't have time for this"

"I'm not moving without an answer."

Livid red sparks burst from the end of his wand.

"Maybe you could jog my memory?" I tried. One would think I'd remember meeting someone whose name was a verb, especially if I'd done something that would inspire them to try to kill mebut I'd been under a great deal of stress recently, with various business affairs. Something key may well have slipped my mind.

It seems that was the right thing to say inasmuch as Weasley didn't hex me for it, but in all other respects the wrong thing, because he gave me the sort of look one normally reserves for the hairy things that stick to the bottom of one's shoes. "Nice try, Malfoy. O'Guin already told me about your little scheme, and you're not getting any money out of me."

"I didn't ask for any" I stopped. This conversation was clearly not going anywhere until Weasley accepted that I had no idea what was going on, and getting him to take me at my word was about as likely as my being named the next Minister for Magic. I considered my options quickly and went for the one that seemed least likely to provoke him further. "Look, why don't we go back to my hotel room"

"It's being watched," Weasley said flatly.

I rallied. "Then perhaps"

"So's your house."

_"What?"_

"And the apartment in Los Angeles, which I think pretty much covers your home bases." He glanced at me sideways with an expression I didn't exactly appreciate. "Why do you think we went to all the trouble of setting up this fiasco if we could've just grabbed you from home?"

"Whonever mind, I already know, _Dies."_ I was beginning to hate the man and I didn't even know him. "And where are you taking me again?"

"Confederation headquarters. You'll be safe there."

"From this Dies, yes, but what does the Confederation want with me?"

Weasley checked his watched and exhaled through his teeth. "They want to question you about Dies"

"They'll be disappointed, then,"

"and probably anything else Greenplate has been up to," he finished with a dirty look at me.

I didn't have any more idea of who Greenplate was than Dies, and I was starting to get annoyed. "And after they question me, what? Shall they send me on my merry way?"

Weasley shrugged. "Eventually."

"How long," I asked, "is 'eventually'?"

"You're in danger as long as Dies is on the loose."

I looked at him skeptically. "So what you're saying is that I've been kidnapped by people who are going to detain me indefinitely to protect me from the murderous advances of a man I've never met?"

"Well, when you put it that way"

"How else shall I put it?" I demanded. "I have issues with people who want to lock me up, Weasley; that's why I left Britain."

"We're not locking you up," he growled. "More likely they'll just give you a house and false identification and stow you for a while somewhere in the arse-end of Canada until Dies is in custody."

"Which is just such a terribly appealing prospect."

"It's not like you've got much of a choice."

"There's always a choice," I said, and raised my wand. "I could just Disapparate"

Weasley grabbed my wrist, squeezing the small bones. "If you run," he snapped, "then it's just a question of whether Dies can find you before we do. And, trust me, if I have to kidnap you again I will _not_ be happy about it."

"You don't seem particularly pleased about it now." I shook him off and glowered, but had to admit he had a point. Whoever Dies was, I was confident I could escape him, given sufficient information time to plan; the Confederation, however, had agents everywhere, and in the long run they would find me if they truly wanted me. Weasley would probably hunt me down again just out of spite. "So what do you propose we do, exactly?"

"Get the hell out of this alley, for starters. We've been standing around way too long." He apparently took my question as acquiescence, because he cast quick cleaning charms on the both of us before pocketing his wand. The spell was entirely inadequate for getting the mud and filth off my clothes. "Follow me and keep quiet."

"Hang on," I said, "I can't go out there like this."

"Why _not?" _

"I'm wearing _robes,_ you fool." Robes which were probably worth more than his life, and which were at that point thoroughly ruined, but stillviolation of the Statute of Secrecy is grounds for deportation, and I had intended to return to Britain on terms that did not guarantee me a one-way Portkey to Azkaban. It's the people-locking-me-up business, you see. "Unless your Confederation can buy off the American Enforcers, too."

Weasley waved me off like a bad smell. "We can risk it," he declared, which was all well and good for _him_ to say. "Just follow me and _please_ don't argue any more."

"Fine." I stomped out onto the dark street, deliberately treading in a puddle so that it splashed on his shoes. "Lead on."

At this juncture I will have you know that I followed Weasley through the foulest, darkest streets of Kansas City for two hours and thirty-six minutes that day. We tramped through puddles. We crossed bridges. We circled the same hideous fountain at least three times. My back and calves began to cramp, my shoes rubbed my feet completely raw, and every time it appeared that we were even remotely close to stopping, Weasley suddenly turned in a new direction and kept walking. The few Muggles we passed looked at us oddlyand I grudgingly allow they were perhaps within their rightsbut the longer we walked, the fewer people we passed, until we were for all intents and purposes alone on a moonlit street, surrounded by dark buildings that towered far over our heads. We didn't speak to one another the entire time, which suited me quite well, because I was too furious with Weasley, and also rather more concerned than I wished to admit to him about the matter of this Dies character.

At that point, you see, I was fairly confident that I had never in my life heard of him. I was also fairly confident that Weasley lacked the imagination to be lying this extensively to meI'd never heard of any Tobias O'Guin and had no idea what an Ess Jay Eff was, but I knew the International Confederation of Wizards sometimes intervened quietly in the affairs of its member nations, whether those members liked it or not. Weasley obviously believed I had some extensive history with Dies, and that the second bomb at the party had been an attempt on my life, and that foul play had befallen his friend and her car, and that all these were interconnected. Which begged the question of whom, exactly, was misinformedhad Weasley perhaps kidnapped the wrong person, or had I not noticed the acquisition of a deadly enemy?

I didn't like either question or any of their possible answers, and by the time I'd worked through them I'd had quite my fill of the walking tour. I trotted up next to Weasley (bloody long-legged git that he is) and yanked on his arm. "Where the hell are we?"

"Somewhere near the Crown Center, I think."

"And where the hell are we going?"

He didn't answer right away. "Have you ever been to St. Louis?"

_"What?"_

"St. Louis, it's a largish city"

"I know what St. Louis is!" A most terrible thought occurred to me. "We're not going to walk _there,_ are we?"

"No, we're going to Apparate."

"Then _why haven't we done that already?"_ I hissed

"We're being followed." I stopped short and turned around. The streets were completely empty, all the windows were dark_"Don't look,"_ Weasley hissed, and hauled me forward by the arm.

"Who's following us?" I demanded. "More of those dye people?"

"Dies," he repeated. "Look, do you know where Kiener Plaza is, in St. Louis?"

"Yes, I know." I glanced up at Weasley's face; he was sweating heavily, which was making the brown hair color run down his neck, and his complexion strongly resembled old oatmeal. Nothing inspires confidence in one's protector better, I assure you, than such obvious signs of stomach-clenching terror. "Why, precisely, do you ask?"

He reached into my pocket, which triggered a few rather mad ideas about his intentions, but he just pressed my wand into my hand. "On the count of three," he said slowly, "Disapparate. Don't care where tobut be in Kiener Plaza in one hour."

"And what, er, will you be doing?"

"Meeting you there." He checked his watch, and I caught the upside-down face in a streetlightnearly one o'clock in the morning. "Right. One"

You will probably think I am exaggerating terribly when I say that the pavement exploded. I am not. An entire square of concrete blew upwards in a cloud of gravel just as Weasley put his foot on it, flinging him backwards dramatically. I threw myself backwards as bits of rock scored my face, bounced off a wall, and had a brief impression of a city street lit up like daylight with flying curses and spells. Weasley was on the ground, empty-handed, grimacing in pain, and I could finally see the dark shapes closing in on us from before and behind. We were both outnumbered and surrounded, and there was nowhere to run.

At that point, I did what any red-blood wizard of my class and breeding would do.

I Disapparated.


	4. In which there is more walking, Plan C, and a cat.

I Disapparated from Kansas City just as a magical fireball screamed towards my face, briefly appeared in a field of extremely startled sheep, and found myself standing on another city street in a hellacious downpour. The dark storefront across the street read _St. Louis Bread Company, _so at least I was where I'd intended to be. I huddled into the wholly inadequate shelter of a doorway and took several deep breaths. _Think clearly, old boy,_ I told myself. _Evaluate the situation._

Situation: I had just been attacked for the second time in one night. I was alone and far from home, and apparently being followed by both this Dies fellow and international agents. The only person who did seem to know what was going on who also didn't want to kill me (well, mostly) was Weasley, who had quite probably been hexed to uselessness already. While I did derive a certain adolescent satisfaction from the idea of him oozing up the pavement in the form of a tentacle-faced slug, in a practical sense I was fucked. I couldn't very well take action against an enemy I knew nothing about, and if Dies was capable of spoiling the plans of the ICW...as much as I hated to admit it, he was probably both wealthier and better-connected than I. The bastard.

What next? I had probably shaken my pursuers for the time beingthey couldn't possibly know where I had Disapparated to. I had, I admit, some experience fleeing countries in the dead of night, though this was _spectacularly_ short notice. I also had more than a few friends from whom I could call in favors. It would be difficult to transfer my Gringott's accounts, of course, and there would likely be a few touchy weeks until I got settled, but with speed and a bit of luck I could easily have been in, say, Australia, before daybreak.

I raised my wand to Disapparate.

I hesitated.

Let me make it absolutely clear that I was not acting out of any actual _concern_ for Weasley. In fact, I was still quite cross with him for what he'd put me through in the course of protecting me. However, I couldn't really be _sure_ of any plans I made; until I knew exactly who Dies was, I would be forever looking over my shoulder, and I couldn't argue against my detention by the ICW if I didn't know what they were detaining me for. I needed more information to take proper precautions. Weasley had that information.

_Damn_ him.

I conjured an umbrella and set out for Kiener Plaza.

A few facts forced themselves upon me very quickly. The first was that, in my haste, I had Apparated rather further away from downtown St. Louis than I had intended. The second was that I actually knew very little about how to get around that particular city. In my defense, I'd only been there a few times, none recently, and anyway what sort of self-respecting wizard spends time studying Muggle neighborhoods? As I didn't dare ask the few Muggles I saw for directions (I was dressed in mud-drenched wizard's robes, and really, they're _Muggles)_ I walked what felt like the length and breadth of the city, crossing the same street at least three times and stumbling several times in puddles of unexpected depths. Coupled with the crawling and walking in Kansas City and the steady rain, I was very thoroughly miserable by the time I reached the plaza at a quarter past two in the morning. This doesn't have much to do with the story, but I thought you might like to know.

Kiener Plaza was well-lit and quite empty; Weasley was clearly not there. Since I didn't know whether he'd already been and gone or if he had never made it this far, I thought it best to wait a bit in case he turned up. What I really wanted to do was sit down, but I felt too exposed standing in the open, and the trees in the plaza seemed to exist solely to cast jumping shadows as they thrashed dramatically in the wind. I eventually tucked myself into a corner near the little amphitheatre, which offered no shelter from the elements whatsoever, to meditate on my misery and consider the relative merits of running away to Australia versus Singapore. If I kept up my current rate of getting run out of countries, I thought darkly, I would exhaust all possibilities in the Anglophone world before I turned forty.

I will now confessfor the first and last timethat when Weasley chose that moment to appear, he scared the living shit out of me.

"Malfoy, you _idiot."_

I may or may not have said something along the lines of _"Yeeearrrgh!"_ as I spun around; I will admit to slipping on the slick pavement and landing on my arse, because it just emphasizes my abject misery at that moment. Weasley was approaching from the shadows of an antique courthouse across the road, limping slightly and with one hand clenched over his side. His face was the color of old oatmeal again, though, I suspected, for entirely different reasons. "What exactly have I done wrong _now?" _I asked when I had regained my feet again.

"Aside from failing to watch your back?" He stopped and leaned against a pillar, instantly taking the weight off his left leg. "For one thing, you're on the highest part of the plaza, and for another, with these shadows you wouldn't see someone right in front of you until they were already close enough to fuck you up five ways from Sunday."

"I humbly beg your forgiveness." Why, I wondered, had I been waiting for him again?

He shook his head, bent stiffly over and cast a binding charm on his left ankle. I suppose you're expecting me to wax sentimental about how he had gotten hurt protecting me; I'm sorry to disappoint. Well, actually, no, I'm not. He'd clearly invited the whole situation upon himself by getting into a profession that involved kidnapping and hexes. And I'd come to meet him here for a very specific reason. "If you don't mind my asking"

He shook his head. "Not now. Plan C."

"We're already on Plan C?"

"Plan B required us to be in Kansas City."

"Ah." I smothered a yawn. "And tell me again why I shouldn't just flee the country and hope Dies doesn't follow?"

"Because Dies _will_ follow." He pushed his hair out of his eyesthe fool hadn't even bothered to conjure an umbrella, the brown dye or whatever had rinsed out completelyand looked at me oddly. "After what happened to Kidd, I'm surprised you'd even consider it, truthfully."

I considered trying anew to explain to him that I had never _heard_ of any Kidd, any more than Dies or Greenplate, but I was too tired, wet and sore to be bothered. Instead I said, "Plan C, then."

"Follow me."

"More walking?"

"Don't dare Apparate again."

I sighed. "Lead on."

This is the last extended description of all the walking he made me do, I promise. I've just been trying to set the tone, and give you an idea of what I had to put up with, and how utterly boring this fiasco was in between people trying to kill me. Rain kept falling and we kept walking, though at a more normal pace, probably on account of Weasley's ankle. While I don't want to give you the impression that I like Weasley or enjoy his company, it wasn't exactly the most scintillating journey of my life, so I thought I would make an attempt at conversation. "I'm surprised you haven't complained yet about my abandoning you to your own devices," I said.

Perhaps Weasley was just as bored as I, or perhaps he'd decided that we were sufficiently safe for the moment, but at least he answered somewhat civilly. "Why would I?"

I shrugged. "It seems like something you'd do."

"Malfoy, I'm the one who told you to beat it, remember?" He snorted. "If you'd stuck around, you would've been in the way."

This was also slander. "I would not have!" I informed. "I'll have you know I once defeated a trained hitwizard in a duel."

He snorted again. "You defeated a ninety-year-old retired hitwizard with one arm, and that's why you got deported from South Africa."

"How do you know that?"

Weasley paused to peer up at the street signs, shielding his eyes with the hand not still pressed against his ribs. "It was all over the papers back home. Aurors were bloody furious that you got away from them again."

"Yes, well, perhaps if they weren't so eager to inflict major bodily harm on me, I might be willing to compromise with them."

"They're not going to hurt you," he said. "You're not even charged with anything, they just want to interrogate you."

"Weasley, did you see what the Aurors did to Theodore Nott?"

"No..."

"Neither did I, it was a closed-casket funeral."

Weasley's brows knit, but wisely he said nothing further.

Another block, though, and something else occurred to me. "As I recall, Weasley, you were all gung-ho to join the Aurors yourself when we left school."

"I was," he said after a pause.

"Don't tell me they rejected you..."

"They didn't," he said vehemently.

"Then how'd you end up working for your acronomic friends? The Ess Whatever?"

"None of your business," Weasley snapped, and picked up the pace. And here I'd only been trying to make conversation....

My legs were threatening to fall off entirely by the time Weasley came to a stop. He peered at the front of a dark, ivy-cased building for several minutes, nodded to himself, and walked around the side. "Is this it?" I demanded. "Plan C?"

"Yes."

"Finally."

I followed him around to the back of the building, where rusty iron balconies clung to the wall like some sort of exotic fungus, connected by a zigzag of creaking stairs. Weasley hauled himself up the first two steps, then put his wand hand out to stop me. "Wait here."

"Wait? What?" I peered up into the shadows. "Is it dangerous?"

"One of us needs to keep watch, and I'm the one with the password."

I snorted. "I thought you said I'd be in the way in a fight."

"If there's a fight now, we're both dead anyway, trust me."

I watched him struggle up the stairs and quietly grumbled. It was fairly obvious that this had nothing to do with keeping any sort of watch; he just didn't want me to see what he was doing up there. Which did not bode well for my chances of getting any further information out of him. I squished around the miserable little patch of grass at the base of the steps and tried to work out a method of getting Weasley to talk. Truth serums, I didn't have, and torture would be more effort than it was worth...he clearly wasn't going to just tell me anything out of the goodness of his heart, and I wasn't interested in debasing myself on the off chance that it would generate some pity. Seduction...

I will admit this only because it is not, for rather obvious reasons, common knowledge, and it will be rather important to your comprehension of later events. I had spent my last few years of school in possession of a highly inappropriate lust for Ronald Weasley. It wasn't any sort of sticky schoolgirl crush, so put that out of your mind immediatelythere was no sighing, no hearts and doodles, and no love poetry. Unless one included "Weasley Is Our King," a rather amusing little song I wrote in honor of his Quidditch debut, but I digress. It was simple physical attraction brought on by puberty and proximity, and if I hadn't disliked him so intensely I might've bedded him right away and put the whole thing past me. As it was, I wanked just about every night for two solid years imagining him, usually in some deliciously embarrassing position, but then the war ended and the Aurors arrived and I developed urgent business in South Africa. Weasley was entirely forgotten.

Mostly.

But the thought to trying to use sex to nudge Weasley into conversation brought back all those ridiculous fantasies, which, like most aspects of adolescence, had not lost any of their power to perturb or embarrass. I refused to risk shaming myself in front of him by reverting to an overeager teenager in the middle of something important. Besides, he was probably straight.

My musings were cut short by movement in the alley, and I raised my wand. After a moment's hesitation, however, I chose not to light itno point in drawing further attention to myself. I could hear Weasley muttering some floors above me and rattling a doorknob, but calling out to him would identify myself. A large pile of bulging garbage bags rattled ominously, and I quickly ran through my inventory of curses, trying to choose one that would buy me enough to time flee for cover

A door above shrieked open. A square of light fell from the balcony onto the alley. A small grey cat with amber eyes blinked at me, meowed once, and pranced off into the shadows.

"Malfoy, are you coming?"

I glared at the cat, at Weasley, and at the garbage bags before pocketing my wand and hauling myself up the filthy stairs

The inside of the flat to which Weasley had led us was barely less shabby than the outside; it smelled strongly of mothballs. The balcony door led into the kitchen, which was tiny and vaguely yellowing all over. Weasley's wet footprints lead around the corner, out of sight.

"What sort of a place is this?" I called, examining the pantry; it was fully stocked, but when I tried to examine a bunch of bananas more closely my nose hit a powerful preservation charm. With spellwork like that, the food would keep until doomsday.

"It belongs to the S.J.F.," Weasley shouted back. "They keep places like this all over, just in case...that's where we were headed in Kansas City before Dies' goons found us."

I examined the pans hanging above the cooker; most of them were dented in some fashion, and one had a suspicious black crust burnt onto the inside. "Nice to see that your organization spares no expense."

"Could you give me a hand in here?"

The kitchen exited into a small dining area, which flowed seamlessly into a sort of parlor. Weasley was propped up on the couch and dripping; he'd untied the laces of his left boot, but was leaning back and clutching his ribs again. "What's the matter?" I asked warily; I am anything but a mediwizard.

"Can't get the shoe off," he said. "Ankle swelled up too much."

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Pull it off."

"You just said"

"One good tug." He looked at me, and raised an eyebrow when I hesitated. "Come on, Malfoy, I'm giving you permission to hurt me. Chance to relive some of those schoolboy fantasies, eh?"

Since it would be counterproductive to explain to Weasley the exact nature of my schoolboy fantasies concerning him, I knelt on the carpet, and tugged, half-heartedly at the shoe. Nothing happened.

"Honestly, is that the best you can do?"

I glared at him, and got a really firm grip on the heel; I could feel how much his ankle had swollen, even with the bindings he'd put on it. I jerked it, and accomplished nothing more that making Weasley hiss in pain.

"Should've known better than to ask a runty little bloke like _ahhh mother FUCK!" _I handed Weasley his boot and stalked off to investigate the rest of the flat. I have no need to hand around being insulted. "Thank you," he called weakly after me.

The bathroom was as tiny as the kitchen, with a mildewy shower and rust stains on the porcelain. There were three small bedrooms, one of which for some reason had a pair of heavy curtains hanging on an interior wall. Another had two doors, one that opened into a hallway and another that lead back into the living area again. I peeked through the curtains; now that we were inside, the rain was naturally letting up, and I fancied that I saw a bit the waxing moon. Or perhaps it was sunlight; it was getting precariously close to dawn.

"Malfoy, as much as I hate to ask..."

I turned around, and immediately saw why Weasley had been clutching his side all night. He'd peeled off his t-shirt: his chest was splattered with bruises and hex-marks, and a deep cut followed the curve of his ribcage nearly to his spine. A deep, bloody cut. There was, in fact, a great deal of blood, enough that I began to feel light-headed just from looking at it.

Weasley was talking. "There should be bandages and some potions in the bathroom, could you"

"Excuse me," I said, and ran.

Don't make that face. This has nothing to do with my being unhelpful. Some people simply have deep and irrational horrors of certain harmless things, and mine happens to be of blood. It's nothing I can control and it's certainly not my fault. You don't see me harassing Weasley about his spider obsession, do you? Well, not much.

I threw up in the bathroom, though not for long, because it had been hours since I'd eaten anything, and then banished the entire contents of the cabinet over the sink into the living room. After utilizing one of the assortment of brightly-colored toothbrushes hanging next to the sink, I slipped into the room with the inexplicable curtains and stripped off the wreckage of my robes. Weasley was a big boy and could, I felt, easily take care of himself and his blood without me. I climbed into the bed, slipped under the sheets and fell asleep almost immediately.


	5. In which I am a very small bottle of cream of tartar and Weasley is not that creative.

This would, I suppose, be the appropriate time for some sort of foreshadowing dream. Unfortunately, I didn't have any. I slept like a brick until very late in the afternoon and woke up feeling like a single large muscle cramp. It was several minutes before I could bring myself to roll over, much less get out of bed. I probably wouldn't have bothered getting up at all if not for the horrific noises emerging from the other side of the odd curtains. I stretched myself out, grabbed my wand and prepared to locate whatever was making the noise and hex it to death.

It turned out the curtains concealed a pair of French doors I hadn't noticed before, which connected my room with the bedroom next to it. That bedroom was currently occupied by the source of the noiseWeasley. He was sprawled on his back, snoring like hell, and, like me, he had not bothered to put on pajamas before collapsing into bed. Unlike me, he had not bothered to pull up the sheets, either.

I am only mortal, and this was my first opportunity to get a good look at Weasley since, well, since I'd realized he was Weasley. He'd certainly changed a great deal since our school days, when he'd looked as though he'd been partially and inexpertly transfigured into a giraffe. Now he was lanky, but in an athletic sort of way, and the muscles in his arms and chest had some definition to them. The wound on his side had closed, though it was still a smear of ugly bruises; I could also make out a surprising number of old scars. He slept spread-eagle, with one leg dangling over the edge of the mattress, and really, if he was going to lie like that it was only natural that my eyes should be drawn to his crotch.

All I will say is: would that we all were so fortunate.

I shut the curtains again and set about pursuing the nearest possible approximation of my morning routine, given that it was now approaching teatime. The closet of my bedroom contained a variety of clothing, some of which was actually wearable, and while the toiletries seem to have been selected for cheapness rather than quality, I was too stiff and tired to actually complain about them. Thankfully nothing was wrong with the hot water supply; I simply leaned back and let the warmth work out the twinges in my back, legs and buttocks, at least until Weasley started pounding on the door and shouting.

"Honestly, Weasley, one would think you'd never had to share a bathroom before," I said when I opened the door, and even managed not to stutter when I saw that he was standing around in nothing but a pair of frayed, graying y-fronts.

"You've been in there for over an hour," he growled, and pushed past me. "Go make breakfast or something, I want to talk to you."

"Yes" The door slammed in my face "sir."

At least Weasley had been waiting productively: there was a full pot of coffee to which I availed myself immediately. I was ravenous, but an inventory of the kitchen turned up nothing immediately edible but a package of muffins. I took the whole thing into the dining area and contemplated various lines of questioning that might provide a graceful segue into a full explanation of exactly what the hell was going on, without Weasley screaming or threatening me again. Weasley came out of the bathroom ten minutes later, drippy but, thankfully, fully clothed. "Is that all you're eating?" he asked when he spotted my muffins.

I shrugged. "There's nothing else in there, is there?"

He blinked. "You idiot," he declared, stole the rest of my muffins, and stomped into the kitchen. I heard a clatter of metal, the opening and closing of doors, and shortly thereafter the hiss of something frying. The smell of meat and hot oil began to pervade the flat. I stayed exactly where I was; if Weasley wanted to play house, it his prerogative.

Weasley eventually came back with two plates loaded with eggs, sausages and what appeared to be fried tomatoes. He all but threw one at me; the other was already drowning in ketchup. "What's this?" I asked.

"Breakfast." He took a seat. "Some of us can survive on our own in the wild."

I glared at him, but he didn't notice because he was busy stuffing his face. I dared attempt some of the eggs; they were, surprisingly, palatable, though swimming in grease. The tomatos were rather more questionable.

Weasley eventually swallowed, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "So," he said, "I think we can safely stay here for another day or two, but when we do leave, we can't take a direct path to New York."

"Why are we going to New York?"

"That would be where the Confederation's headquarters are."

"No," I said flatly, poking the puddles of grease on my plate with my fork. "I meant, why are you taking me to your headquarters in the first place? What compelled you to kidnap me? Why is Dies trying to kill me? Who the hell is Dies? And Kidd? And Greenplate? And O'Guin? What, exactly, the _fuck_ is going _on?"_

So it wasn't exactly the graceful; it still worked. Weasley stared at me with his fork hovering halfway to his mouth, dripping egg bits and grease onto the table. "You really don't know, do you?" he said, as if he'd just discovered the Philosopher's fucking Stone.

"Yes, Weasley, that's only what I've been trying to _tell_ since before the first bomb went off." I stabbed at my sausages; there were burnt, probably deliberately.

Weasley put his fork down. "This doesn't make any sense."

"Really, do you think so? I hadn't noticed...."

He shook his head. "Malfoy, you _own_ Greenplate and Company. O'Guin was your Confederation liason. You've been passing us information on Dies for the past eight months."

You can well imagine the effect of this pronouncement. I dropped my fork and gaped at him. "You are _joking," _I said weakly.

"I'm not." He drained his coffee mug. "Linnet had copies of some of the documents in the car; I could've shown them to you if...well. You know."

"Why the hell would I be passing information to the _government?"_

"You think I know?" He leaned back over his plate. "I was actually hoping you'd explain it to mewhen O'Guin briefed me on the case, I thought for a good half-hour he had the name wrong."

I racked my brains, search for any explanation. "Polyjuice?"

Weasley shook his head. "Believe me, being that it waswell, _you, _they did every possible check. No potions, no illusions, no imposters."

"...Imperius?"

"You'd still remember anything you did, though. And who would force you to buy an import-export company and then spy on them?"

I concentrated fiercely. There was nothing. Weasley kept eating with his brows knit; I stared at the plate, mostly, wondering if I had perhaps fallen into some sort of alternate universe. It was simply not possible, but here was Weasley explaining it, and as I said before he's just not this creative. What the hell?

Eventually Weasley set aside his fork and said, almost tentatively, "You haven't been having any weird headaches, lately? Disorientation, short-term memory loss"

"I have _not_ been Obliviated," I said the moment I realized where he was headed. "I would"

"Remember it?"

I glared at him. "If my memory's been modified, who did it? Dies?"

"Of course not," Weasley said automatically, "if he could've gotten that close to you he would've just killed you there."

"Exactly. So who else could it have been?"

He drummed his fingers on the edge of the table for a few minutes, staring into the middle distance. I forced myself to eat; if I was going to confront a world gone mad, I wouldn't be doing it on an empty stomach. Suddenly, though, Weasley shoved his plate and mug aside and Summoned an assortment of spice jars out of the kitchen.

"What the hell are you doing?"

He grabbed the largest bottle, oregano, and put it in the middle of the table. "This is Dies," he announced. "And here's Kidd," the cinnamon, "Greenplate," the nutmeg, "and you."

I was a very small bottle of cream of tartar. "Why can't I be the oregano?"

"Shut up for a moment." He pushed the four named bottled around for a few moments. "So Dies has been shipping with Greenplate for who knows how many years, when you" he brought the cream of tartar forward "buy a controlling interest. What happens?"

This was news to me, but I thought I could follow along with it. When I realized the question wasn't rhetorical, I explained, "I would've audited the company's books, to see if there were any problems they'd been hiding from me and who I needed to shout at. Identify the important clients. That sort of thing."

"How far back would you go?"

"Four, sixth months, depending."

Weasley thought for a moment, twirling Cinnamon Kidd in his hands. "Right. Right, so if you noticed something fishy"

"Fishy how?"

"Fishy like invoices for a company that doesn't exist."

I shrugged. "I wouldn't know whether it existed or not, unless I went looking for it, and I don't generally go checking up on clients unless they're not paying their bills."

Weasley gnawed his lower lip. "All right, forget that. The point is, you must've found something fishy, because you started sending copies of invoices to the Confederation Shipping and Standards Control Board."

"I did?"

He nodded. "Greenplate wasn't stupid enough to put Dies' home address on the things, of course, but they helped us track down the people he was supplying, and set the local Enforcers and Aurors on them. Busted up a lot of potions labs in Europe that way."

"What exactly does Dies supply them with?" I asked.

"All sorts of weird shit." Weasley fiddled with the cap on the oregano bottle. "He's a poacher, mainly on Indian land. Selling stuff like pickled chupacabra rectums on the international market. So," Weasley pushed the Cream of Draco to the other side of the table, "you start passing invoices to the Ministry, and then Kidd...does _something_ to piss Dies off, we don't know what."

I winced as Weasley knocked the cinnamon bottle over. "Who was Kidd, exactly?"

"Calliope Kidd was Greenplate's chief bookkeeper. She was last seen alive crossing the Canadian border, and last seen at all on a farm field in Alberta. Well, the biggest bits of her were...."

I shook my head and tried hard not to picture that. "Why the _hell_ would I try to piss off someone like that?"

"Really." Weasley spun the cream of tartar bottle. "From what I was told, two weeks ago, you met your S.J.F. contact and started demanding cash compensation."

"You mean I wasn't getting any before? How stupid of me."

"We don't make a policy of paying informants." He pushed Greenplate away. "When you stopped talking, though, the S.J.F. turned the case over to the American authorities, who raided Greenplate's office. They found him swinging from the rafters."

"He'd _hanged_ himself?"

Weasley laughed a bit. "Stupid git tried, but he didn't get enough of a jumphe was just swinging there, choking to death, when the Enforcers busted in." He tapped the nutmeg bottle on the cap. "Thing is, he won't talkgrabbed himself a lawyer and refuses to cooperate with the authorities."

"And where do you come in?"

He drummed on the table a bit more, then began talking softly. "O'Guin sort of reckoned that what had happened to Kidd put the fear of Dies into you, and you were asking for money for another disappearing act like you pulled in South Africa. You were put under surveillance"

"I was _what?"_

"for your own protection," he said over me, "but you didn't seem to be making any moves, so the watch was scaled back after just a few days. But when Greenplate's office was raided, they found a letter that impliedheavilythat Dies knew what you'd been up to was planning to get a very messy revenge. About the same time, some of his goons started staking out your office and your house. So the S.J.F decided you were safer in our hands than his, and O'Guin put together the whole tunnel scheme, to get you of there and throw Dies off the scent." He paused. "And he called me in from Hungary to help, because he's under the impression that we were old mates from school."

I laughed out loud, and pushed a bottle of paprika towards him, next to the cream of tartar. "What about this O'Guin, though? What's his role in this aside from making very bad decisions?"

"Hmm?" Weasley grabbed a bottle of lemon pepper and set in next to the paprika. "I don't actually know much about himhe's a veteran agent, spent years working with Shipping and Standards Control."

"If we're supposedly such good friends, why didn't he come kidnap me himself?"

Weasley pulled an unpleasant face. "Seniority has its perks. He got promoted to the agent in charge of the whole Dies case and doesn't have the time for field work. Meaning he doesn't get to deal with it personally when his brilliant scheme goes all to shit."

We both stared at the artfully arranged bottles of spices. I wished one of them would've just raised its hand...well, cap...and explained what had been done to me, because, having heard the story from end to end, it still didn't make sense. Why would I have looked deeply enough into this Greenplate's finances to uncover the smuggling scheme? Why the _hell_ had I gone to the Confederation with it? Who could've possibly Obliviated me, and why, if Dies was already planning to kill me?

"I don't suppose," I said slowly, "that there are grounds to assume that this is all one big misunderstanding?"

He sighed. "There's one more questionhow the hell did Dies figure out our plan for extracting you?"

"You make me sound like a rotten tooth."

"O'Guin, Linnet and I were the only ones who knew all the details," Weasley said. "Dies obviously didn't know where in the ballroom the tunnel was hidden, or he would've bombed the bar instead of the lav"

"That was what blew up?"

"but if he got Linnet he must've known where the exit was located."

"Maybe Linnet's a traitor?" I suggested. "Told Dies where to find us and then sped off with the company car?"

"I suppose it's not completely impossible..." Weasley looked alarmed at the idea, but then he shook his head and redirected attention to what was left on his plate. "Either way, I sent a message to O'Guin this morning, letting him know it's all gone pear-shaped. And, like I was saying, I think we should probably take an indirect route to New York."

"How indirect?"

He shrugged. "Not sure. Dies hasn't got the money or manpower to search every city in America, but if I were him I'd certainly have someone here in St. Louis, and probably on the watch in Chicago, too. We definitely have to stay out of the wizard neighborhoods..."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because," he said, "that's where they'll look first, isn't it? And they can't be stupid enough to attack us with magic if we're in the midst of a crowd of Muggles."

As I've said repeatedly, Weasley is not the most imaginative of wizards. I pushed my breakfast plate out of the way and leaned forward. "Weasley, here's a little hint: the only people who worry about doing magic in front of Muggles are the people who care about Muggles at all. If Dies' men want to hex us, I don't think they'll give a damn about where we're standing or who's around us."

"So what do you think we should do?" he asked, scowling.

"Well," I said, "where is the easiest place to hide something?"

He stared at me for a second, and I hoped to spring my rather brilliant idea on his overawed little mind; but then he grinned, and looked at me as if he were judging something. "In plain sight."

"Exactly."


	6. In which I am not allowed outside, Weasley is stubborn, and certain potions are not meant to be shaken up.

  
The next two days were spent sleeping, planning, and in a rather curious state of détente. Weasley and I got along remarkably well, except for the part where he refused to let me step outside.

"Why the hell _not?"_

"Dies has probably got people crawling the city. This is the first place I'd look if I were him."

"He's looking for you, too, you know."

Weasley just smirked. "I know a thing or two about concealment and disguise."

It was a strangely comfortable existence: Weasley did the cooking, I was forced to do the washing-up, he complained constantly about the time I spent in the shower and I got to watch him walk around the flat in various states of undress. As it happened, Weasley slept naked every night, and he didn't seem to realize that I knew about the French doors. Life, in that respect, was good.

(What? He's aesthetically pleasing.)

That first day, Weasley left me with an assortment of greasy pans and plates and went out in search of information. He came back with a copy of the _Seer-Gazette, _which he flung at my head. "There. So you can keep up on your press clippings."

I unfolded the paper and stared at the headline: _FIRE RAVAGES KC BALLROOM, DOZENS INJURED._ The accompanying photograph showed what I presumed to be the result of the second explosion; a large part of a wall seemed to be missing, and in the foreground a mediwizard was examining a suspiciously still body. I skimmed the rest of the article.

_"...started by an explosion...no details...despite witness reports of two explosions...four still missing, including expat business mogul Drago Malfoy..."_

"Drago?"

"I noticed that." Weasley was unfurling several large maps on the dinner table. "Look at the back page, while you're at it."

I flipped it over. Aside from a rather large advert for ear trumpets ("it's so light I forget I'm holding it!") and a small piece on some minor politician and his extramarital affairs, there was an article with the headline _Alleged Smuggler Greenplate Found Dead in Custody – Authorities Call Suicide._ "That's not our Greenplate, is it?"

"The very same."

I read quickly. It mentioned a few basic details about the smuggling operationnothing more than Weasley had already told meand his botched attempt to hang himself, but nothing more. "It doesn't say what he died of."

Weasley pinned the largest map to the wall with a few flicks of his wand. "None the reputable papers are, no. It's being hushed up."

"So what are the _disreputable _papers saying?"

He glanced at me. "The Killing Curse."

I dropped the paper into my lap. "You can't cast that on yourself."

"Exactly." Weasley pinned up a second map. "The disreputable papers are disreputable for a reason, of course, but I reckon somebody let something slip they shouldn't have."

I considered this for a moment. "Dies, of course."

"If he thought Greenplate was going to cop a deal or something, yeah." He picked up the third map, but there was no more space on the wall; he tapped it with his wand so it would float in midair instead. "Though it takes some doingnot to mention bollocksto stroll into a hospital loaded with Enforcers and kill a bloke under suicide watch."

"Indeed." I thought for a moment. "But this does mean that I'm the last one left who knew about Dies' exports, doesn't it? There's no one else?"

Weasley paused, and gnawed on his thumbnail. "I hadn't thought of that, but yeah."

I set the paper aside; it no longer seemed interesting. Instead, I surveyed the maps. "What did you find?"

He pointed to each of the three maps in turn. "Public Floos, permanent Portkeys and approved Apparation zones for the eastern half of the country. And this" he pointed to a fourth map, still folded on the table, "is just a plain map, but I reckoned we could use it to plot the course, so to speak."

My planall right, _our_ planwas going to work, I was sure, because unlike the fiasco of the bomb and the tunnel in Kansas City, it was simple. We were going to take publicly available magical transit all the way to New York. By sticking to crowds (on which Weasley insisted) and moving continuously, if erratically, we would stay below Dies' range of detection and, hopefully, one step ahead of him all the way to the coast. Actually getting into the Confederation building in New York City would be another matteraccording to Weasley, access was extremely restricted for security reasonsbut this technique would, I was certain, get us most of the way there unharmed.

So, as I said, we spent most of the following two days determining ahead of time the route we were going to take. Well, arguing about it is probably more accurate. Weasley insisted on some of the most bizarre detours, and muttered darkly about surveillance; on the other hand, when I innocently suggested we split up in Detroit and reunite in Paducah, he became nothing short of apoplectic, and he seemed not to think that we would ever need to eat or sleep. Whichever of us became too fed up to argue the fastest usually lost, and because Weasley is a stubborn son of a bitch, reaching that point usually took several hours. I suppose I could've given in earlier on a few points, but you must understand, with Weasley these sort of things are matters of pride: he get unbearably smug when he wins.

Weasley also set about procuring supplies, but I was forced to take over certain responsibilities after I caught him frowning over a handwritten list of ingredients in the kitchen. I naturally read overwell, all right, _around_his shoulder. "What sort of a potion is that?"

He scowled and tried to hide the list. "Hair dye."

"Hair dye?"

"You'll admit mine is a bit conspicuous."

I snatched the list out of his handthus proving, I think, that my Quidditch skills have no totally decayedand read it over closely. "Please tell me you weren't actually going to try _brewing _this."

"Why not?" He tried to snatch the list back and missed by a mile. "I've done it before."

I blinked. "And you've still got all your fingers?"

"...I wrote that out from memory."

I sighed. "I thought you sat the Potions NEWT."

"That was seven years ago!"

I went into the dining room, summoned a quill, and rewrote the list into a combination of ingredients that would not kill or maim anyone. "Here. Don't say I never gave you anything."

He examined the list with furrowed brows, then said, "I don't suppose you know a basic a Confusion Concoction off the top of your head?"

"Why?"

"Could be useful in a pinch. Keep people from following us."

He looked hopeful and earnest. I sighed.

Yes, I spent the night before we departed slaving like a house elf over various cauldrons on the cooker to fulfill Weasley's requests. To his credit, he participated up to his minimal capacitychopping ingredients and making unhelpful remarks along the lines of, "If you can brew up all these potions, why can't you cook?"

"Cooking is nothing like potions-making."

"It's the exact same stepschopping, boiling"

"Cooking is servant work."

If I'd know the plan would come essentially to naught, I might've mixed up a few other potions while I was at it; as it was, though, we were caught completely off-guard.

The morning we had determined to depart, Weasley ordered me to change clothes three times, drilled me on our itinerary, and burned the maps. He then spent an hour and a half being thoroughly annoying.

"Can you do a Misdirection Charm?" he asked as he paced.

"Yes, Weasley."

Up, down, up. "What about a Confundus Curse?"

"Yes, Weasley."

Down, up. "Disillusionment charm?"

_"Yes,_ Weasley."

Down, up, down, up, down"What about"

"Weasley," I said, "if you are always this nervous, it's no wonder the Aurors kicked you out."

"They didn't kick me out." He glared at me and went back to pacing, muttering to himself.

At half past eleven he finally chucked a large satchel at me and shouldered one of his own. He ran his hand through his hair and seemed surprised not to find it streaked with brown dye. "Malfoyplease don't do anything stupid."

"I won't if you won't."

"Be serious."

"Weasley," I said, "people want to kill me. You would not believe how serious I am."

It took him several minutes to re-secure the door, while I examined the alley; aside from the blasted gray cat and a bunch of overflowing dumpsters, it was empty. Our plan was to use the Floo at the inn in St. Louis' wizarding district, which went by the delightful name of Virtue Alley, to start off on our whirlwind tour of the eastern United States. We walked (yes, more of _that_) a suitable distance from the flat, then Apparated to the inn, which is where we hit the first snag.

"What do you mean," Weasley asked viciously, "there's a wait?"

The bartended gestured to the queue of harassed-looking people in front of his fire. "This is our busiest time of day," he said, almost apologetically. "I mean, if you'd come a little earlier"

I cut in, "Where do we get in line?"

"Well...at this point, we're really just giving out numbers. Which reminds me." He clanged a large iron bell hanging over the taps and bellowed, "Numbers under forty!" A depressingly large number of people rose from their seats, until the queue now stretched the length of the bar.

Weasley observed this, too several deep breaths, and said, "Let's have a number, then."

We were seventy-seven.

The bartender offered us free drinks, which we declined; actually, I did the declining while Weasley dragged me to a table in the corner. He had that old oatmeal look again. "It's not that bad," I said.

"Yes," he said, "it is."

"So, we'll be delayed. Change of plans."

He rapped the table with his knuckles. "Look at the lot that just came up to the bar."

I looked, and wished I hadn't. A half-dozen burly wizards had appeared at the bar, with a look about them that I didn't like at all. They were all wearing expensive robes and quite a lot of jewelry, and appeared to be showing photographs to the bartender. One of them raised his hand to show to levelsmy height, roughly, and Weasley's. "Shit."

"We have to run for it," he hissed. "The next public Portkey won't leave for an hour"

"So we'll Apparate."

His eyes narrowed. "Try it."

The bruisers were coming towards us; I stood up and got a good grip on my wand and my satchel, flicked my wrist

Well. I suppose I could describe the feeling, but one really can't fully grasp the experience of rebounding off an Anti-Apparation Jinx until one actually does it. I shall nevertheless make an attempt: take every hangover you've ever had, combine it with a bad case of the flu, toss it inside a large metal drum, and pound on the ends of the drum with iron hammers. Then throw it off a cliff. I collapsed back into my seat, shaking all over, barely able to think _at least I didn't splinch myself...._

Thankfully Weasley had the sense to haul me up and out of the inn while I was still getting my bearings. "That was an Anti-Apparation Jinx," was the first thing I managed to say.

"Brilliant work, Malfoy."

_You _try being intelligent in that situation; I shook off his arm and tried to overcome the strange vibrating feeling inside my skull. "But we Apparated in"

_"Which means this was trap."_

He grabbed hold of my sleeve and kept pulling me forward through the ebb and flow of the midmorning shoppers. "Trap?" I echoed. "How the hell could it be a trap?"

"I have no idea, but we have to find another fire."

"Where?" I shook off his arm again and paused to rub my face. "We can't just go up to a shop and say, 'Excuse me, we're being stalked by a criminal gang, could we please use your Floo?'"

"Keep walking!"

We marched along in silence; I had to grab hold of Weasley's satchel to bring him down to a manageable pace. The Gringott's branch at the end of the alley loomed ever closer, but when I opened my mouth to ask him if where, if ever, he indeed to stop, he jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow. Then I noticed our company: more bruisers, a bit smaller than the ones in the bar and dressed far less flashy. They were walking nest to us, in front of useven, if I caught the reflections in the storefront mirrors properly, behind us. Traps within traps.

We suddenly turned down a side streetI'm not certain whether it was Weasley or the gang of cretins or both taking the lead. Unlike the main thoroughfare, it was nearly deserted. "Weasley," I whispered, "any time you wanted to stage a dramatic escape would be just fine with me."

"Wait for it."

We walked, and walked, until it was just Weasley and I and about six of Dies' men (that I could see, anyway) surrounding us like an honor guard. I couldn't keep my eyes moving fast enough to follow them all; Weasley stared ahead with a fixed expression, appearing completely oblivious. The end of the alley loomed in sight, a sturdy brick wall flanked by decrepit buildings. At that moment I seriously considered fleeing on my own; the only thing stopping me was the possibility of another Anti-Apparation Jinx.

Then I noticed Weasley reach into his satchel. He groped around for a moment, then began to shake something rather violently. I frowned at him; he winked at me, and pulled out the bottle of Confusing Concoction, which is a potion that does not take well to being shaken up. It was bubbling violently in its bottle and giving of pink and orange sparks.

Weasley whistled sharply; the two bruisers walk in front of us turned around, just in time for the bottle of potion to smash at their feet.

I'd never seen what happened to a shaken-up Confusing Concoction before, and it turns out it's rather interesting; if I hadn't been in mortal peril, I might've taken notes. The potion converted to a vapor almost instantly, quickly filling the narrow street. I held half a breath; Weasley pulled his shirt up over his mouth and nose and ran for it, dragging me behind him, though the thick of the cloud.

Curses whizzed over our heads and pockmarked the street. We made it into the shadow of the nearest building, around the back, and through a door that Weasley charmed so hard it nearly came off its hinges. The first floor appeared to be empty; I groaned, and he growled. "Upstairs."

"If the building's empty, we're trapped"

"Just come on!"

He took the stairs two and three at a time, and I struggled to keep up. The second floor was just a landing with five doors. Weasley started pounding on them, shouting "Open up! Open the fuck _up!"_ which I really didn't think was terribly productive, but I didn't have time to tell him so because a curse struck me just below the knee.

I collapsed to the floor; I was completely ration and clear-headed, mind you, but a sort of tingling numbness spread out in waves from the point of impact, almost like an intense, full-body Jelly Legs Jinx. I tried to say "Weasley, can you give me a bit of assistance here, I think I'm in mortal peril," but what came out was more along the lines of "Weough ugh uhnnn." He swore, and dragged me around a corner after sending a few hexes blindly down the staircase.

I found myself propped up against a door, the only one Weasley hadn't been pounding and shouting on. He rattled the knob, pounded a few times, and then said "Oh, fuck it," and pointed his wand at it. _"Alohomora!"_

The door didn't just unlock, it swung open, and I cracked my head against the floor, which shows you just how much consideration Weasley had for my safety and well being considering that he was meant to be saving my life. He grabbed me under the arms and dragged me through, kicking the door shut behind him as he called "Hello, sorry, we need to use your fire"

Except the room was quite empty. The sparse furniture was covered in white clothes, the floors were coated in dust; but, thankfully, there was a fireplace, though it was dead and cold. Weasley dumped me limply on the floor (though, I will grant, less violently than before) and I heard him pawing about near the fire, mumbling to himself. My head was pointing in the wrong direction to see anything except the door of the room, and the knob beginning to twist

"Aha!" Weasley shouted, then, _"Incendio!"_ I heard a fire roar into life and smelled the peculiar odor of Floo powder in the air.

The door was beginning to open

Weasley grabbed me and hauled me back into the fireplace; he shifted until I was slumped into his chest, nearly vertical; "The Dirty Goat!" he said, and my last impression was of the door of the flat swinging open.

This is how we ended up at the filthiest wizarding pub in Cincinnati, Ohio.


	7. In which there is drunkenness, nudity and levitation, in that order.

Naturally I didn't immediately realize that we were going to the filthiest pub in Cincinnatti, Ohio. What I realized was that it is _extremely_ uncomfortable to Floo two at a time. Weasley was holding on to me as best he could, but the channel is simply too narrow; every single one of my limp extremities banged and scraped against the dozens of grates we passed, and when the rough edges snagged my clothes I felt as if I were being undressed by an irate cheese grater. Weasley at least spared one hand to keep my head from lolling about, which is likely the only reason I still have it.

He fell over on top of me when the fire at the Dirty Goat coughed us out. After the deafening rush of the Floo, it took a moment for me to register the mid-level hum of conversation and clicking cutlery. Weasley was pushing himself up and rubbing soot from his eyes when a shadow fell across us both. "Good morning, gentleman," said a voice that was really quite menacing. "Can I help you?"

And Weasley, kneeling over me, suddenly changed dramatically; his face fell loose, his eyelids dropped, and his words came out in a boozy slur, minus the actual booze. "M' mate's drunk," he said with a shit-eating grin. "I think we got the wrong grate, though."

"Is that it?" The shadow loomed closer; thinking quickly, I shut my eyes.

"Yeah," Weasley said. "Yeah. Could 'choo, um, let us have a room? For a bit? 'Cause he's fucking pissed, mate, four sheets to the wind...or seven...or somethin'..."

I waited for a severely long time before the bartender said, "Of course. I'll go up and unlock it for if you can get youruhfriend up."

I peeked once I heard footsteps moving away; Weasley made a great show of climbing to his feet, then threw my arm over his shoulders and dragged me slowly up the stairs. My head swung loose on my shoulders, and I got a good look at two old warlocks perched at the bar with bottles; no wonder the bartender hadn't remarked on us being "drunk" at midday.

One of the warlocks spoke while Weasley was struggling with me, and I overheard the following exchange, which I swear I record now verbatim:

"That's disgusting."

"Yep."

"Disgrace to the name of wizard."

"Yep."

"I betcha they're from Massachusettes."

"Eh?"

"He was dropping his ar's."

"Mmm."

"You know the Muggles made it legal up there?"

"Yep."

"Disgusting."

Weasley dragged me into the room above the pub, which was dingy and stuffy with summer heat. He thanked the bartender in his mock slur, but once the door shut he dumped me on the nearer bed and started flitting about the room, sweeping his wand over every surface and muttering incantations under his breath.

After a few minutes of this, I tried to say, "Weasley, get your freckly arse over here and perform a countercurse!" It came out as "Llllnnnuhhh."

"I know, Malfoy, I'm busy," he said, without even looking at me. "Just, just sit still for a second."

"Nngggahh!" With tremendous effort, I flopped one my arms against against the headboard. It hurt.

"Sorry!"

He layered so many Imperturbable charms on the door, windows, even the bloody ceiling, that the air faintly buzzed around us. He then did a charm I didn't recognize, that outlined all the room in a thin red haze for a split second. Then, finally, he sat next to me on the bed and spent seven and a half minutes chanting countercurses until he found the one that brought feeling back into my limbs. This was unfortunate, because it finally allowed me to feel the bumps, scraped and gouges I'd acquired in the Floo, which were, as I said, numerous. I sat up and rubbed the side of my head, where Weasley had let me fall over; I could feel a bit of a lump. "Took you long enough."

He rolled his eyes at me you. "You're welcome."

"Where are we?"

"Cincinnatti." He stood up abruptly. "Take your clothes off."

"Excuse me?"

Weasley pulled off his shirt, which was pretty much shredded anyway. "I said take off your clothes."

I watched him peel off his vest, tangling that crystal necklace around his head, and begin to unfasten his belt buckle. "You know, I don't usually hear that until the second date."

He glared at me even as he shoved his trousers down, revealing the y-fronts. "One," he said frostily, "that leg needs to be looked at. Two, we need to get rid of these clothes anyway. Three, I think one of us had been hit with a Tracking Charm."

"I've never heard of any Tracking Charms," I said, while he tried to get his feet untangled from his shoes and jeans.

"They're notexactlycommon knowledge" One leg came free, and he almost toppled over. "Mostly used by law enforcement for tracking suspects."

"What makes you think we're being tracked, though?"

The other leg came free, and Weasley peeled off his socks. "I suspected it in Kansas Citythe lot who attacked us there didn't pick us up until we were a good ten blocks from the alley. But this proves it, I thinkthe Anti-Apparation Jinx wasn't cast until we were inside the pub. Dies and his people are following out movements _somehow_."

"And why do we have to be naked?"

"The charm leaves a markbut it could be anywhere on either of us." And then he stepped out of his y-fronts and folded his arms and stared at me. "Come on, then."

I think you can appreciate exactly how uncomfortable this situation was for me. It was one thing to oggle Weasley while he was asleep, but when he was awake and naked and _staring _like thatwell. The monsters of adolescence were once more rearing their spotty heads. "You do realize I'm a poofter, Weasley," I said, hoping it might put him off the idea.

"Do I look like I care?"

Well, then, cheers to him for being confident in his sexuality. I began to undress.

"Could you hurry it up a bit?"

"Could you not _stare_ like that?"

I saw his lips twitch up from the corner of my eye; damn it, he knew he'd gotten to me. "My apologies," he said dryly, and turned around to rummage through our satchels. Unfortunately he squatted down to do so, which was in its own way even worse than the staring. I finished undressing with my eyes shut.

"There now. Happy?"

Weasley stood up with the bottle he'd fished out of my satchela basic unguent we'd appropriated from the flat in St. Louis. "Roll over so I can do your leg."

I resisted the urge to congratulate Weasley on his wonderful choice of words; instead I stretched out on my stomach on the bed, and Weasley hissed the way people do when they've seen something really disgusting. "What?" I demanded.

"Nothing."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing. Don't turn around."

The area where I'd been hit was still a little numb, but I distinctly felt the unguent go onboiling oil would've felt soothing in comparison. I believe my thoughts on the subject were "Fucking _shit!" _

"Pipe down," Weasley said, and conjured a bandage. "At least we caught it in time."

"Caught _what"_ I tried to turn around, and Weasley pushed my head into the pillows. "Dammit, it's my leg!"

"Lift up a bit so I can tie the bandage."

I kicked my foot in the air and felt him apply the dressing. "You realized you're not reassuring me at all."

"I'm not trying to reassure you, I'm trying to cover the bloody crater."

_"What?"_ I twisted around, trying to see; Weasley cringed and tried to pin me to the bed. "What d'you mean, crater?"

"I didn't mean crater. I meanterhole. Small hole."

"What's wrong with me?"

"You want the list?"

"Weasley!"

"Will you calm the bloody fuck _down?"_

He pinned me flat on the mattress with both hands, laying his whole weight across my back, the crystal pendent resting against my face. I stopped struggling and relaxed my breathing. "Weasley," I said as calmly as I could manage, "I think I have a right to know if my limbs are about to fall off."

"Then I'm happy to inform you that they're not," he said. "The hex just left a bad mark. It'll heal in no time."

"Good."

Weasley sat on me for a bit longer.

"You can finish putting the bandage on now."

"Are you going to get hysterical again if I get up?"

"I was _not_ hysterical."

"All right."

He climbed off the bed and finished wrapping the bandage, while I concentrated hard on house-elves and Arithmancy. It's a bit difficult to conceal an erection when one is naked, after all.

And don't make that face, either. All men get inappropriately aroused from time to time, all it takes is stimulationand I wasn't fully erect, just a bit...firm. What with the sheets rubbing against it during the tussle and then Weasley getting friendly, my penis was quite probably just confused. It means absolutely nothing. In fact, I don't even know why I'm bringing it up.

Oh, wait, yes I do. After Weasley tied off the bandage, he climbed to his feet and said. "Now stand up so I can check you for the Tracking Charm."

I briefly considered the consequences of refusal, then took a deep breath and stood. Weasly, surprisingly, didn't say a word; he just knelt down next to me and started running his hands up my calf. "What, er, exactly are you looking for?" I asked

"Discoloration. Swelling. Hot spot under the skin." His fingers traced around the sole of my foot where it met the floor. "I'll know it when I see it."

"Lovely."

From the vicinity of my clenched right hand, he barely glanced up. "What're you so jumpy for?"

"I'm not jumpy."

"Just close your eyes and think of England."

"Very funny."

I had to think of _something,_ though, because Weasley was kneeling on the floor in front of me and you are certainly capable of deducing for yourself where that train of thought led. I did Arithmancy problems in my head, reviewed my stock portfolio, and tried to remember all the words to the Hogwarts school song while Weasley's hands marched up one leg, and then the other. I was too old for this, I told myself. I am a grown man. I do not get randy at the slightest provocation anymore.

Weasley grabbed my testicles and lifted them aside. I shrieked. _"What the hell?"_

"Just being thorough." He leg go and knee-walked around behind me.

I shielded my crotch with my hands in case he decided he had to check under my foreskin, too. "Oh, yes, because I really couldn't tell on my own if someone had bewitched my perineum."

He knee-walked around behind me and ran his fingers over my arse. "I don't know how you survived living in a dormitory for seven years."

"Well, to begin with, Slytherins don't go around casually grabbing each other' scrotums!"

"I mean," he said, his hands now on my hips, "you are entirely too jumpy about nudity."

Only with Weasleys who stare and grab scrotums, I thought. "I am not jumpy."

He snickered. "Sure you're not. Did you have to ask everyone else to clear the showers so they wouldn't get a look at your delicate heinie?"

"My _what?"_

His hands slid around front across my stomach, up towards my chest. "Or did you just have Crabbe and Goyle hold up a towel and avert their eyes?"

I felt the absurd urge to growl, and castigated myself. I was not allowed to let him get the upper hand. "Did you consider that perhaps you're a little too _free _with yourself, if you catch my meaning?"

"Malfoy, I had five brothers growing up."

"Do you mean you couldn't afford clothes for the lot of you?"

It was, I admit, a bit on the harsh side, and certainly very immature. What do you expect? I was naked and he hand his hands on my nipples; I needed to regain the upper hand. He paused for a moment, then carried on feeling me up for spell marks, but he also answered in a stiff, cold voice. "No, I mean I got used to having no privacy."

Weasley didn't talk while he checked over my shoulders, neck, and arms, though he did linger for quite a while near my left elbow. I squeezed my eyes shut while he probed my face, my ears, my bloody scalp..."I think I found something."

"Wh_ow!"_

"That hurt?"

"Yes, you stupid git, because you _dropped_ me there."

"Oh." He finally stepped away far enough that I didn't risk rubbing up against him when I breathed. "So it's not on you.... do me now, I guess."

Of all the sticky dormitory nights I spent imagining Weasley saying _do me now,_ I don't think I ever came close to the scenario in which it finally occurred. But Weasley was already examining his own arms and chest, so I obligingly turned to his back. "What am I looked for again?"

"I told you, swelling, discoloration"

"And how am I to tell what's discolored or not?"

That cold voice again. "Freckle jokes stopped being funny in first year, Malfoy."

"My sincerest apologies."

Surprisingly, my mind didn't wander too far afield during my Weasley inspection; perhaps I was simply too annoyed with him. When I got down to his arse, though (and, true to my earlier assessment, it was a very fine arse) I simply had to avenge his earlier testicle-grabbing antics. I ran by fingers over both cheeks, through the creases where they met his thighs, and then delved into his crack.

"Malfoy!"

"Just being thorough," I said. He growled.

I made it all the way down to his feet, then sat back on my heels. "Congratulations, Weasley, all your discolorations are your own problem."

"You didn't find anything?"

"Not a pimple."

He started pacing the room. "They how the bloody hell did they find us...?"

"Maybe," I said, "you're not the master of disguise you claim to be."

He stopped and glared at me, then shook his head. "Get dressed. We have to keep moving."

I immediately seized my satchel and the first pair of trousers that came out of it. "We're terribly far off our itinerary."

Weasley's head popped through the neck hole of his vest. "I don't think we should stick to that plan."

"Why not?"

"We don't know how they found us in St. Louis," he said, "therefore we don't know if they'll find us again. The safest thing to do is just get to New York as fast as we can, while we're still a step ahead of them."

Dammit, he was being logical. I grumbled a bit as I finished dressing, and finally asked, "So where are we going?"

"I need to send a message to O'Guin first, to let him know we're coming."

It took me a moment to remember who O'Guin was, and a full minute to remember something important. "Weasley, you told O'Guin about the original plan, didn't you?"

He dropped his robes over his head and frowned at me. "Not the details, but yeah, something."

"Perhaps Dies' men intercepted the message, then."

Weasley shook his head. "They couldn't have."

"How do you know?"

"Because the S.J.F. has ways of communicating that can't be cracked."

Ah, the acronym again. I was almost as sick of them as I was of Dies. I shouldered my satchel and turned around to ask Weasley how he intended to leave when we were meant to be passed out drunk on the floor, only to discover that he had opened the window and was dangling one leg out. "What are you doing?"

"Leaving." He swung the other leg over the sill. "This window faces an alley, come one."

"You want me to jump out a window with you?"

"Well, I'd have to lift all the spells on the room for us to Apparate, and if I leave them up anyone who's followed us this far will could be held up for hours."

All right. So perhaps Weasley can be creative from time to time. I still wasn't jumping out any window and I told him so.

"Suite yourself," he said, and jumped. A moment later I heard a faint, agonized moan.

I paced around the room for several minutes, tried to kick the door, and examined my reflection in the mirror. I was in need of a haircut. I paced the room again, listened for more moaning, heard none, then gave in and stuck my head out the window. "Weasley, are you"

_"Leviosa!"_

If nothing else in this chronical so far has succeeded in invoking your pity, this should: I was without warning or provocation levitated out of a second-story window and into an alley. (I spent a great deal of time in alleys on this little adventure, didn't I?) Nothing feels quite so helpless as levitation; I paddled furiously at the thin air and groped for a drainpipe as I floated past, but I could catch nothing, could _do_ nothing but wait for Weasley to let me down. And swear at him, which I did, at length.

All right, so I was only in the air for a few seconds, if that. But it was still very traumatic. And if that doesn't inspire your pity...well, keep reading.

When I felt my weight settle on my feet again, I pointed my wand at Weasley's throat. "I," I declared in a suitably enraged tone, "_despise_ you."

He just raised his eyebrows at me. "Would you rather I'd pushed you out? Come on."


	8. in which there is a stunning betrayal.

We spent the rest of the day travelingFlooing, Portkeying, discretely Apparating and, yes, walking, though I did promise no more extended descriptions. There isn't much to describe, anyway, as Weasley wasn't exactly open to conversation. Except for ordering me around, he didn't say much of anything until we got to a restaurant in Philedelphia, very late in the evening.

"I've contacted O'Guin," he announced upon his return from the gent's, where he had spelled his beard off and his hair to a normal length. He'd apparently decided to use this trip to demonstrate his vaunted skill in concealment and disguise, and I was forced to admit his self-assessment hadn't been far off; he'd managed to startle me breathless three times in four cities, and an hour previous in Washington he'd come out of a back alley looking like a smaller, rather gingery version of Rubeus Hagrid. It was a relief to see he'd rejoined the world of the groomed.

"And what does Mr. O'Guin have to say?"

"He's going to meet us in Newark tomorrow morning." Weasley leaned back in his seat and rubbed his chin, which was looking a bit raw. "He's bringing an escort, so we don't have to worry about getting into headquarters."

"Wonderful," I said. "I'll get to enter my captivity in style."

"I keep telling you, you're _not_ a prisoner."

"Semantics, Weasley. Just because it's for my own good doesn't make it any more palatable."

He opened his mouth to argue, then shut it and shook his head. "Let's get some sleep."

We spent in a rather seedy and grim-looking inn on the other side of town. I lay awake for several hours and considered running away, but as Weasley had already said, there was nowhere to run _to_. I tried to look on the bright side and couldn't find one. It is a sign of how much I was dreading my impending detention that I fantasized briefly about remaining on the run with Weasley indefinitely, though without all the swearing and stubbornness, and somewhat less clothing as well.

This is the closest thing I can provide to ominous foreshadowing. I'm terribly sorry if you were expecting better.

Weasley woke me up at a truly ungodly hour, and I was a bit disappointed to see that he was already dressed. "Come on. We're supposed to meet O'Guin at nine o'clock."

I located my watch and examined it. "Fuck you," I said.

"We's got some walking to do once we get to Newark."

"Fuck you _twice._"

I dressed, and we Flooed to a wizard pub in Newark. I was surprised when Weasley lead the way onto the Muggle street. "How exactly are we getting to your headquarters again?" I asked him.

"O'Guin didn't say. Probably bringing cars, though." He was consulting a closely-written piece of parchment, and occasionally peering at street signs as we passed them.

"So where are we meeting them?"

"Er...said a warehouse. I guess that's where they're parking the cars."

The warehouse turned out to be a miserably drab place surrounded by more weeds than pavement. Weasley spelled open the fence, which was festooned with signs like CONDEMNED and NO TRESPASSING and, for some reason, BEWARE OF THE LEOPARD. As we crossed the lot, I was concentrating more on how early we were and Weasley's abject cruelty in waking me up than the exact nature of my surrounding; therefore, when we stepped into the cool of the warehouse, it took me a moment to figure out why Weasley had stopped short, causing me to bump rather hard into his back.

This was why: while the building had looked like a decrepit old warehouse on the outside, on the inside it looked like a decrepit old _abandoned_ warehouse. It was completely empty except for a few stacks of moldering wooden pallets and some Muggle machine so covered in rust it would probably collapse in a stiff wind. A broken light fixture had fallen to the floor; on the far wall, a short flight of stairs ran up to a dark, vacant doorway. Rubbish, dust and some fairly impressive cobwebs had collected in the corners, and the only motion was a stray cat trotting away with a dead pigeon in its mouth.

"No cars," I said. In my defense, I was rather surprised.

Weasley cleared his throat and looked around. "We're a bit early, you know. Maybe we should, er, wait outside"

A man's voice seemed to come out of nowhere. "You're not early."

I, of course, nearly jumped out of my skin, but Weasley's shoulders sagged with relief. "Agent O'Guin! Good to see you."

O'Guin turned out to be a very forgettable fellow: he was middle-aged, average height and average build, with medium brown hair, brown eyes, and an eminently uninteresting face. He came out from behind the rusty machine and approachedus ; Weasley rushed to meet him, and I followed a step behind. Here, allegedly, was my intimate ICW contact, and if I had half-hoped that seeing him would somehow stir up my memory of why Dies was after me, I was disappointed. O'Guin smiled as we met near the center of the building and shook Weasley's hand. "Glad to see you myself, Weasley," he said. "No one saw you come in, did they?"

"No, I haven't seen any tails since St. Louis." Weasley looked around again. "Where's the escort?"

"Not here."

Weasley blinked. "You mean they were held up?"

"I mean I didn't call them." O'Guin turned to me. "Mr. Malfoy. A pleasure to see you again."

He offered me his hand and I shook it. "I wish the feeling were mutual."

O'Guin smiled faintly. "Oh, good, then I did Obliviate you right. I wasn't sure."

It took me several moments to realize the full ramifications of this statement, during which time O'Guin never let go of my hand. Weasley, thank God, reacted somewhat faster. I was still hung up on the words _I_ and _Obliviate_ when I heard him shout _"Expelliarmus!"_

The ensuing duel was one of the fastest and most furious I have ever seen, and it raised my estimation of Weasley significantly, even though he lost. O'Guin blocked the Disarming spell rapidly at the same time that he spun me with the hand he was holding and twisted my right arm painfully behind my back. The next few seconds were a flurry of incantations and colored streaks of light; it ended with Weasley sprawled out on the concrete floor withI gulpedblood streaming down his face, and no wand in sight.

"Really sorry about this, Weasley" O'Guin said calmly. "If I'd realized you would survive this long I would've picked another agent." I squirmed, stomped on his foot and broke away; I made it about two steps before a single flick of his wand had me levitating a good ten feet above the cement floor. "Bad boy. No cookie."

Weasley pushed himself up on his elbows and wiped his face. "How long have you been working for Dies?" he asked bitterly.

O'Guin snorted. "Arnold Dies is an idiot, haven't you noticed? I keep telling him exactly where you were and he can't manage to kill you."

"So who _are_ you working for?"

"Ain't tellin'." O'Guin suddenly dropped me to the floor, and the impact knocked the wind out of me. "Dies is just itching for the chance to see Mr. Malfoy in person, and Agent Linnet's already reported on how you assaulted her in Kansas City, so I think we'd better wrap things up."

"Linnet _what?"_

"It's amazing what you can get people to say with one good Confundus charm." O'Guin turned his wand on Weasley. "You know the punishment for a rogue agent..._Avada"_

Wait. Let me set the scene here. O'Guin is standing more or less in the center of the warehouse floor. I am laying flat on my stomach at his feet, scarcely able to breathe, much less move, and with my own wand pinned underneath me. Weasley is laying about ten feet away, doing nothing but bleeding and looking terrified. His wand got lost somewhere in the scuffle and I don't believe he was capable of sitting up, never mind running. He is, quite clearly, going to be killed.

In such a situation, a wizard does what he must. In my case, this involved biting O'Guin, hard, on the ankle.

_"KedAAAHHH CHRIST!" _

I've seen miscast spells before, and some of their astonishing results, but never before had I witnessed such a powerful spell gone so horribly wrong. O'Guin was so badly startled that his arm flew upwards and pointed to the ceiling. A shimmering column of green light exploded from his wand. Every wizard who lived through Voldemort's return knows the color of the Killing Curse, and this wasn't itit was a pale green, a yellowish-green, and it blew a hole through the roof a dozen feet wide.

O'Guin kicked me in the face, and I felt a terrible, agonizing crackbut he was stumbling backwards and trying to ward off great chunks of flaming debris that were falling around us. I pushed myself up and drew my wand, casting from my knees. _"Stupefy!"_

"Protego! Locomotor mortis!"

But I was already moving, and the thickening smoke and falling debris were obscuring everythingO'Guin missed by a fraction of an inch, and then I dove behind a stack of pallets. Then something inside the building gave a deafening metallic groan, and I dared squint up at the burning ceiling just in time to see another light fixture come crashing down. The rusted metal rafters were beginning to bow ominously, as if the whole roof were about to fall in

O'Guin, alarmingly, laughed out loud. "Dies will be very disappointed, Mr. Malfoy," he called. "Have a nice life."

And then, he said two of my least-favorite words on the planet: _"Aparare Obstato!"_

I threw myself out from behind the pallets just in time to see the door through which we'd come in slam shut. O'Guin was gone, good; O'Guin was likely guarding the only known exit, bad. Anti-Apparation charm: worse. I looked around, and noticed Weasley crawling towards the far wallhe wasn't dead! "Weasley! What do we do now?" I demanded, running towards him.

"Don'tfucking_know,"_ he panted. "Wand"

Something in the ceiling must've given way, because a shower of burning debris came down on our heads; I tried to cast some kind of shielding charm, but another light fixture burst right through it and nearly took Weasley's foot off. _"Accio_ Weasley's wand!" I shouted, and it flew at me, slightly scorched. I pressed it into Weasley's hand. "Now what?"

He shook his head. "Has to be another exit"

I looked wildly around; there was the door we'd come in through, yes, and a large metal door on the same wall, but that was where _O'Guin_ wasthe vacant door on the far wall caught my attention. "Over there?"

Weasley turned around achingly slowly. "...maybe..."

I looked around. Weasley could hardly move. The door was all the way across the vast warehouse floor. The roof shrieked again and more lights fell; the whole thing was now consumed in flames.

"You," I told Weasley, "are going to owe me for this. A _lot."_

"What"

_"Corporum leviosa."_ Weasley floated off the floor, squawkingsee how he liked itand I grabbed hold of his arm. Then I ran.

That sprint across the warehouse ranks among the worst ten-second periods in my life. Weasley was clinging to me and groaning, bits of the roof were crashing around me, there was smoke in my eyes and my lungs and any minute I expected to be crushed to death. I made it , though, up the stairs and through the empty door, into the pitch-black room beyond. I rather think I deserve some sort of award.

I was coughing uncontrollablytoo much smokeso it was Weasley who lit his wand and pointed it around the room. It was full of dusty, broken-down furniture, some dented metal lockers, a few cardboard boxes and absolutely no doors.

"Fuck," I managed to say.

The roof collapsed.

I threw myself to the floor and covered my head; Weasley flicked his wand and blocked the doorway with a table. There was a terrible cacophony for a moment, then eerie silence, except for the roar of the flames outside. Smoke was seeping around the edges of the table, but otherwise we were more or less safe in the tiny room. And also a little trapped.

"Malfoy?" Weasley croaked after a few moments of silence recuperation. "Can I stop floating now?"

I ended the charm, and he thumped to the floor with a pained gasp. Whoops. "We're trapped," I said.

"I know." A long pause. "O'Guin sold us out."

"I know."

I put my face in my hands, trying to sort everything out. After a few minutes, Weasley said, "We're screwed."

"Thoroughly."

"If O'Guin's got the S.J.F. convinced I'm a traitor" With seemingly Herculean effort, Weasley sat up, mostly. "Jesus, Malfoy, I don't even have a fucking passport."

I had the insane urge to laugh. "Yes, because that's certainly the worst possible thing that could happen to you, getting caught without your fucking passport"

"Shut the fuck _up."_

I probed my face where O'Guin had kicked me; if it _wasn't_ broken, it was close to it, and my eye was starting to swell shut. Bastard. "So what now? Shall we just sit and roast?"

Weasley was silent and thoughtful for a long time, staring at the dust and smoke swirling in the wandlight. Eventually he said, softly, "New York is impossible now."

"Gee, do you think?"

"We'll have to try another way..."

"Way to what?"

He stared at me. "Contact the Confederation."

"Weasley, who just tried to kill us?"

"O'Guin is a rogue," Weasley said. "I have to warn someone about him."

"So what shall we do?"

He paused significantly for a moment. "I've got plenty of friends back in Britain."

"How do you expect to get them here?" I asked, folding my arms.

"Come on, Malfoy," he said, almost pleadingly, "don't tell me you don't want to go home"

"I think you know very little about what I want," I snapped.

Weasley looked like he wanted to argue, but seeing as he couldn't even stand up straight, he let it pass. "Fine. I still think we should leave the country."

"Presuming we can leave this little rat-hole."

"Presuming I live that long..."

I looked up sharply, and lit my own wand; Weasley was looking slightly greenish now, actually, and he was probing his own abdomen with stiff fingers. "You'reare youwhat?"

"No, I'm not dying, don't freak out." He shifted and winced a bit. "I don't think there's internal damage, at least."

"I wasn't 'freaking out'." It occurred me that we weren't getting anywhere if Weasley couldn't move. "Do you need a bandage?"

"A bit more than a bandage, I'd say." He wiped more blood out of his face. "You lost your bag out there."

"So did you."

"I wasn't accusingjust come here." He conjured a thick stack of bandages. "And try not to puke, okay?"

Warily, I crossed the room and knelt next to him. He had been wearing a dark shirt, but at close range I could see large wet spots on itI swallowed hard. "What, er, what exactly do you need me to do? Besides not vomit?"

Weasley spelled his shirt into his lap and I stuffed my fist into my mouth. I didn't even recognize whatever curse O'Guin had used, but it had cut several long gouges into Weasley's chest and back that were bleeding rather profusely, in addition to an assortment of small burns and blisters from the fire. "Are you going to puke?" Weasley asked.

I shook my head.

He handed me the bandages. "Just wrap me up for now. Once we get out of here we can dress them properly."

I nodded, took a few deep breaths and regretted it; I could _smell_ all that blood and it made me gag. It took a moment to unclench my fingers enough to start rolling strips of linen around Weasley's torso without actually looking at it. The blood soaked through them almost immediately, it got on my fingersthe only thing that kept me from fleeing the area screaming was the knowledge that Weasley would never let me live it down, presuming _he_ lived at all.

I tried to concentrate our next step instead...well, the step after next, technically. The truth was, I wanted very much to go homejust, as I've stated before, on terms that do not involve the threat of imprisonment or major bodily harm. And while escape from major bodily harm was an awfully tempting pretext for sneaking back into Britain, I still couldn't risk it. And I wouldn't let it cloud my judgement. Not even a little bit. If we were leaving the country, we were going to go to fucking Australia.

Of course, we weren't going anywhere if the entire Confederation was looking for Weasley's head. Not by normal means, at least. "Weasley," I said when the blood had stopped soaking through the bandages, "can we agree that your Ess Whatever friends are no longer on our side?"

He looked at me askance. "I'm actually astonished they haven't hunted us down yet, all things considered."

"Then can we agree that you and I are, for all intents and purposes, fugitives?"

"Yes..."

"And," I said, "can we also agree that I my exit from South Africa was nothing short of miraculous?" He raised one eyebrow. "Well, very amazing, at least?"

"I'll give you amazing."

He looked like he was wearing some sort of odd white tube-top by that point; I clumsily tied the bandage off. "In that case, we need to go to Alabama."

He stared at me. "Alabama?"

"Some friends of mine live there," I said, which was true, and all that Weasley needed to know. "They helped me get out of South Africa and they can help us get...wherever."

Weasley looked skeptical, but he nodded. "Hanged for an egg, hanged for a dragon."

"Exactly."

Weasley braced himself against the wall and managed to stand up, with much cringing and grunting. When he didn't fall over, I relaxed. "That just leaves one question, though."

"Which is...?"

"How the hell do we get out of here?"


	9. In which we remove to the alligator farm.

In the end, it was almost ridiculously simple: after a thorough search of the premises that exhausted any other possible means of escape, Weasley blew a hole in the wall. It's silly that we didn't think of it earlier. The drop to the weed-eaten pavement was several feet, but not nearly enough to justify any levitation, thank God. The area was still full of smoke, but after performing a complicated little spell with his wand,Weasley reported that O'Guin had gone.

"Idiot," I said. "Why doesn't he stick around to ensure we were dead?"

"Because the Confederation has probably got the American Enforcers looking for me," he said. "Between the two of them, it's a miracle we made it this far already...how are going to get to Alabama anyway?"

That had occurred to me. "Apparation, I suppose. It's the only way."

"What, your friends don't have a Floo connection?"

"They're a bit...shall we say, paranoid?" I noticed his expression. "You would be, too, if you'd been run out of your homeland in the dark of night."

"You weren't run out" Weasley stopped himself before he said anything stupid. "So they're old mates of yours, yes?"

"Rather." I squinted at the sun; it was still quite early. "I don't suppose we dare warn them we're coming?"

"Too risky." Weasley cocked his head to one side, a bit like a confused dog. "Do you hear something?"

I listened. Some sort of wailing siren was approaching. "Maybe a Muggle spotted the fire?"

"Maybe," He pulled out his wand. "So where in Alabama are we Apparating to? Mobile?"

"...nearly."

Look, if I had told him the whole truth he would never have agreed to it, and after the warehouse fire I didn't feel like arguing. I should have recalled how bloody stubborn he can be, though. "What do you mean, nearly? Do they live in a village or something?"

I sighed. "No, they live in the country, some distance from Mobile. If you know how to tandem Apparate, I can take us almost straight there."

"Almost?"

He was doing the _staring_ thing again. I cleared my throat. "I don't...actually know _precisely_ where it is. But I can get fairly close."

Weasley was silent for a long time, and I waited for the shouting to begin. To my surprise, he simply sighed and held out his wand. "I don't suppose we've got any other options, do we?"

I touched the tip of my wand to his and Apparated

We appeared on the weedy shoulder of a state highway and the first thing that hit me was the humidity: it was like being dunked in a hot bath. The thick air muffled my breath and clung to my skin like a thin layer of slime. I squinted against the sun and spotted the rutted gravel lane that lead off the highway, about thirty feet away from where we were standing. So I'd been a little off; we were still where I'd wanted to be.

"Where are we, Malfoy?" Weasley asked, looking around the barren road apprehensively.

"This way." I lead him to the lane, which wound quickly out of sight. "It's down this way a bit."

"How far," Weasley asked, "is 'a bit'?"

"I...don't exactly know." He looked at me like I was out of my mind. "I've never actually been here before; I just financed the blasted thing."

"You don't know where we're going."

"I know exactly where we're going." This didn't seem to be convincing him. "Look, Weasley, I've followed you all over God's green acre for the past six days, the _least_ you can do is have a little faith in me?"

Weasley sighed, and turned down the gravel path. "Fine. Just...fine. Whatever."

"I knew you'd come around."

"Just start walking."

I know I promised no more extended descriptions, but this was _miserable._ The humidity was oppressive, choking in our lungs and soaking through our clothes. Disgusting yellow flies the size of peanuts buzzed about our heads and left tiny bleeding welts where they bit. Even when we first set out, the sun was pounding down malevolently, and as the morning shifted over to afternoon I could feel the back of my neck slowly burning away. The gravel gave way to bare dirt that had been pounded into dust, and the dust flew up and stuck on our sweaty clothes and made a foul film in my mouth. Even when we crossed unto shade, there was no relief; the temperature didn't drop, and while the trees blocked the sunlight, they also cut off any hope of a breeze. Whatever sadist came up with the idea of Alabama should be destroyed.

Weasley was quiet most of the way and walking slowly; I confess I was somewhat comforted to notice that his sunburn was even worse than mine. He only spoke once, excluding the increasingly vile obscenities he directed at the flies. "Malfoy?"

"Hmmm?"

"You saved my life."

I glanced at him; he was staring sort of fixedly ahead, shining all over with sweat, expression neutral. I wasn't sure what he expected me to do, so I said, "Are you going to hold it against me?"

He glared at me. "Never mind."

We walked for the better part of the day, progressively slower: the wound on the back of my leg began to ache, then throb, so that I was half limping in the end. As midday came and went, though, the winding lane took a sudden dip, and the ground began to get wetter. Soon there were puddles of standing water on both sides of the path, and then _in_ the path, and I would've cursed the thick-headed lumps who couldn't even maintain their own property if I hadn't been overjoyed by the prospect of reaching our destination. I managed to limp faster, until I came to the sturdy iron chain that blocked off the path just before it plunged straight into a stinking fen. I could almost see the house from here.

Weasley came panting up behind me. "What the hell is this?"

"Where we stop." I drew my wand and let off a loud blast of sparks, hoping that I remembered the signal correctly; in four years, I'd never got around to actually using it. The noise sent a cloud of birds fleeing the trees and echoed oddly over the standing water.

Weasley looked around, then pulled a tangle of kudzu off a faded wooden sign I hadn't noticed before. It had been hand-painted, and badly, but the words were still somewhat discernable. "'The Lucky Lizard Alligator Farm,'" Weasley read incredulously, "'ested 2001.' Ested?"

"Probably 'established.'" I looked over the sign myself. There was also a small cartoon that somewhat resembled an elongated green flobberworm underneath the words; I supposed that was their mascot.

Weasley wrestled off another long limb of kudzu and read  
further. "'Proprietors...' I don't believe this."

"Believe it."

He sat down very abruptly on a mossy stump. "Crabbe and Goyle own an _alligator farm?"_

I didn't get a chance to explain; a loud whoop echoed across the water, and a moment later Goyle came into sight aboard a self-propelling rowboat. The little craft stopped some distance from the water line, and he leapt out, sloshed through waist-deep water with a grin that made _my _face ache in sympathy. "Draco!" he called gleefully. "You shoulda wrote!"

"I, er, didn't have time," I said. "It's a bit"

I didn't get to finish, because as soon as Goyle cleared the iron chain he swept me up in a bear hug that not only seemed to crush several ribs, but buried my face in his massive pectoral muscles. The added pressure on my broken face was completely unnecessary, and he didn't smell very good, either. "It's been ages," Goyle said gleefully, "you shoulda come by sooner!"

"YeswellI've been busy," I muttered.

He finally released me, and seemed to just hen notice my eye. "Draco, what happened?"

"Long story," I said. "Listen, we need your helpyou and CrabbeI can explain everything inside."

"We?" Goyle looked around, and spotted Weasley, who was sitting with his head in his hands. Goyle stared for a second, then turned around and whispered to me, "That's a _Weasley!"_

"Yes," I said, "that is Weasley." Weasley waved. "Look, I promise I'll explain everything inside, only we've just come from Newark and there are a few different people trying to kill me..."

Goyle thought furiously for a few moments, and I held my breath. If he turned us away now, we were several different kinds of fucked as there was no one else in America I trusted to take us in. For an irrational moment I wished desperately I'd found time to visit before now.

Then his brow relaxed, and he shrugged. "Yeah, sure, better talk it out inside." He glanced at Weasley with a scowl. "Him too?"

"Yes, him too." Weasley didn't move immediately. "You too?"

"Yeah, me too," he said, and stood up. His legs almost immediately buckled, and I leapt forward just in time for him to grab me round the waist and avoid falling over entirely. "Oh, hello..."

Swearing, I peeled Weasley's sweat-soaked t-shirt off his back; underneath, the bandages were just as damp and heavily spotted with blood. "Goyle," I said desperately, "he's hurt rather bad, do you have any healing potions handy?"

He blinked dully at me. "This is an _alligator_ farm, Draco." When I stared at him, he extended his right hand: a variety of ugly-looked scars wove their way to his elbows, and the last joint of his smallest finger was missing.

"Oh," I said, and looked down at Weasley, whose face was screwed up in discomfort. "Can you get into the boat?"

"Yeah," he said, "yeah, just gimme a second."

Goyle ended up have to half-carry Weasley onto the boat, while I got the priveledge of slogging my own way over. At least the water was cold, though even that virtue fell into question when Goyle advised us to check ourselves for leeches. The rowboat wended its way between half-submerged trees and heaps of muddy moss, and I thought I saw some of the Lucky Lizards themselves moving through the water. A sprawling mess of a house, built on high stilts, soon came into view, and I spotted the tiny figures of Crabbe and Millicent Bulstrode waiting at the boat tie-up. I'd nearly forgotten that Millicent had shacked up with the two of them, and mentally kicked myself again for not staying in better touch.

I endured another eye-popping hug from Crabbe at the dock, and Millicent gave me a solemn handshake before grunting, "Let's have a look at that eye, then."

"Er" I glanced back at Weasley; he was having some trouble getting out of the boat. "I think I can wait a bit, actually."

"I want to know what Weasley's doing here," Goyle said, as he tossed my would-be protector onto the dock like a sack of potatoes.

Millicent whacked him across the knuckles with her wand while I tried to hoist Weasley to his feet. "Manners, Greg! They're guests!"

"Draco said something about killing."

Crabbe perked up. "Killing what?"

"Us," I growled. I tugged on Weasley's arm again. "Come on, we're nearly inside."

He wrapped his arm around my neck but didn't make any particular effort to stand. "Think I'm seasick," he mumbled.

"No, you stupid bastard, you've got heat stroke and you're bleeding to death."

Millicent stared at Weasley for a few minutes and then, in a thoroughly alarming gesture, grabbed him by the collar and helped me haul him to his feet. "Inside with both of you," she announced. "Everything we need is in the kitchen."

I hobbled into the house and followed Millicent to the vast kitchenwell, it had to be, considering the size of the occupants. Weasley and I both collapsed at the table while she collected several bottles of potions and a pitcher of gloriously cold water for us. I got a tea-towel soaked in something yellow and steaming to put over my eye, and Weasley got Millicent's enthusiastic help removing his shirt. He flipped a chair backwards and straddled it while she stripped off the dirty bandages; I concentrated on drinking as much water as fast as I could without causing a stomach cramp

Crabbe and Goyle entered after a few minutes, looking singularly grumpy. They sat at the end of the table furthest from Weasley and stared while Millicent put a plastic bendy straw in his glass of water. "Er," I said, "how are the alligators?"

"Good," Crabbe said. "Why's Weasley here?"

So there was no getting around it, then. I sighed. "It's really quite a long story, and I don't know all of it, and I just found out about most of the things I don't know this morning..."

"The spice jars might help," Weasley said.

Everyone looked at him, and then at me.

I cleared my throat again. "Er. A visual aid."

Millicent looked deeply suspicious of this, but pointed to the appropriate cabinet before she back to rub something thick and odd-smelling into Weasley's wounds. I quickly found the appropriate bottles and spread them out on the table where everyone could see.

"Right," I said. "So since you haven't got any cream of tartar, this is me." I put a jar of mustard powder in the middle of the table. "And this is a man named Greenplate, and this is Arnold Dies, who is one of the people trying to kill me."

"A bottle of oregano is trying to kill you?" Crabbe asked.

"It's a symbol," I said quickly. "Pretend it's a psychotic poacher." He and Goyle traded concerned looks, but didn't interrupt again, so I carried on with the story. "So, Greenplate was helping Dies smuggle his product out of the country, but I found out, so Dies wants to kill me. Except a fellow named O'Guin Obliviated me, so I don't really know what happened with Greenplate. And O'Guin is working for someone else" I placed a jar of basil next to the lemon pepper"who also wants to kill me, but I don't know who _he_ is or why he's after me. Anyway, O'Guin tried to kill us this morning, which is why I'm here."

"What about Weasley?" Goyle asked.

Weasley sipped his water. "I'm the paprika."

"Yes..." I picked up the paprika and tried to work out how I could explain this, but in the end, the only thing that made the slightest bit of sense was the blunt truth. I took a deep breath. "Weasley was, er, sent to protect me from Dies by...bytheInternationalConfederationofWizards."

Goyle's eyes went narrow, which only made him look myopic, but which I knew of old to be a cue that he was very close to deciding to assault someone. "What's the Confederation want with you?"

I couldn't bring myself to say it, so I fiddled with the cap of the mustard powder instead. It was Weasley who finally said, softly, "Malfoy was assisting the Confederation in a criminal investigation."

_"What?"_

They were glaring at me, and I knew I'd committed the unforgivable sinfraternizing with the enemy. I'd collaborated with the government (never mind that it wasn't the Confederation hunting us), I'd brought a Gryffindor into their midst (never mind that we were _long_ out of school)they were going to break every bone in my body out of sheer spite. Even Millicent was looking sour, and by the look on Weasley's face she had suddenly got rather rough in her minstrations.

"Why," Crabbe growled, "did you go cozying up to the Confederation?"

"I don't know," I said quickly, "I've been Obliviated I don't remember any of this."

All three of us looked at Weasley, who tried to throw his hands up and earned a swat from Millicent. "I only know what I heard in the briefing from O'Guin, and right now I'm not sure I trust half of it," he said. "He set us up to fail in Kansas City, and he must've brought me in thinking I'd be at a disadvantage, not being an American..."

"And also because we hate each other," I added.

"Right."Weasley took another sip of water. "O'Guin's boss...let's call him...er..."

"Basil?" I suggested.

"Yeah, Basil." Weasley reached out for the bottles and earned another swat from Millicent. "So Basil wants you dead, and O'Guin's been trying to set us up for Dies to accomplish it."

"Why, though?" I examined the lemon pepper bottle. "We were apparently alone together often enough for him to do it himself..."

"Because O'Guin needs to maintain his own cover," Weasley said. "If you turn up dead after a meeting with him, he's putting himself at risk...Obliviating you, he might as well have painted a target on your forehead."

This made sense; I still didn't like it. "Which still leaves us with the question, who is Basil?"

We all sat around staring at the spice jars, though I think only Weasley and I saw them with any significance. Eventually Goyle took his hand off his wand hilt and asked, "So what do you need us for?"

"Do you think you can pull off another South Africa?"

Crabbe shrugged. "Depends on where to."

I glanced at Weasley, expecting him to jump in, but he met my eyes and said, "We're still working on that."

Millicent grabbed Weasley by the arm and tried to pull him up. "I need to do your other side," she said. "And Draco needs a bath."

I climbed as best I could to my feet, grateful for the change of subject. "Millicent, those are the most beautiful words that I have heard all day."


	10. In which an argument gets out of hand.

That afternoon I had the most outright sensual cold shower I have ever experienced; I may have actually wept in the throes of my ablution. Millicent even slipped me a clean change of clothes, though because they were Crabbe's I had to spent several minutes shrinking them before I could dress. It didn't matter; at that point I was so mired in desperation I may have consented to wear animal skins, provided they were clean and relatively odorless. And here I'd been depressed about socializing with the bloody Stiffles.

The rest of the afternoon was spent recuperating from the events of the previous two days. Millicent finished cleaning and bandaging Weasley's wounds, mended my face as best she could, and replaced the dressing on my leg (a procedures accompanied by several nerve-straining remarks about how huge and ugly my crater was, the size of the scar it would leave, and what a miracle it was that I could walk on the leg at all). She then prepared dinnerfried catfish by the cauldron loadon the exact same table, without even washing her hands, and nobody else seemed to find this problematic. I suppose one gets accustomed a certain level of barbarity on an alligator farm, of course.

Crabbe, Goyle and Weasley were surprisingly civil with one another during the meal. In fact, Weasley had taken on a curiously restrained air after Millicent had dosed him with a Blood-Replenishing Potion. (I myself wondered why they kept Blood-Replenishing Potions on hand, until I remembered Goyle's finger.) He scratched his sunburns and fidgeted about as if he were just dying to say something, or had a very full bladder, or possibly both, but remained mostly silent and ate steadily. Meanwhile, Crabbe and Goyle focused most of their attention on the spice bottles, which Millicent had declined to clear from the table.

"Who's the cinnamon bottle?" Goyle asked.

"Kidd," Weasley said. "Accountant. Dead."

"Ah."

Weasley picked up his fork and put it down again something like three times and mumbled to himself. I resisted the urge to demand he come out with whatever the hell he had to say, and turned to Crabbe instead, intending to strike up a conversation about the state of the farm. Crabbe, though, was looking as thoughtful as he ever got, and staring at the basil jar. "Got to be a reason for killing you," he said. "You don't kill for no reason."

"Ministry don't need a reason," Goyle said darkly.

"Nah, the Ministry's reason is that we're Slytherins."

Weasley made a funny noise and scowled, and I quickly changed the subject before they could settle into an extended Ministry-bashing session. "If I knew the reason, believe me, I would tell you," I said. "I'm as confused you are."

"But you were there," Goyle said with a frown.

"I was"

"You don't know and you were there?"

"Well," I saidhadn't we already explained this? "There's this rather inconvenient Memory Charm involved"

"I could break it," Weasley blurted.

We all stared at him incredulously.

"It's just a thought." He shoved a massive amount of roast potatoes into his mouth and chewed defiantly.

"Why," I asked, "haven't you mentioned this before? Say _five days ago?"_

He swallowed. "Because I thought we would be in New York soon enough and there'd be a proper Obliviator on hand to take care of it."

"And you're not a proper Obliviator?"

He looked at his plate, and I thought his ears got a bit redder under his sunburn. "I did Memory Charms for my NEWT," he told his catfish.

"You also sat the Potions NEWT and you can't make your own hair dye," I said.

Goyle blinked. " I thought that was natural."

"So I'm not exactly an expert," Weasley said, looking up. "I understand the theory, and it's not like we've got many other choices."

"Choices about what?" I asked. "Ways to kill me? Because that's Dies' job, if you hadn't noticed..."

"Malfoy, I don't trust anything O'Guin told me about this case anymore, and we need information." he said. "You knew what was going on at Greenplate and Company, you knew why O'Guin Obliviated you, you probably even knew who Basil is. If I break the charm"

"Without blowing my mind out in the process?"

He went silent for a few seconds, then said stiffly, "I think we're to the point of desperate measures, Malfoy."

"I'm not desperate at all." I turned to Crabbe. "So how have things been on the farm lately?"

The idea gnawed at me the rest of the meal, though. It wasn't just a matter of discovering the identity of Basil; for nearly a week I had been asking myself why in the name of hell I would go to the authorities when I found evidence of Greenplate's smuggling operation. Even ignoring the deeper question of how I found out about it in the first place, I simply couldn't imagine myself doing it; in every scenario I pictured, it would've been smarter to simply ask for a cut of the profits, or at the very least ignore what was obviously a vital source of revenue for the company. I needed to know what had driven me to report to the Confederation at all, not because it would help us evade Dies or Basil or O'Guin, but for my own peace of mind.

But I didn't need it badly enough to let Weasley practice his charm-breaking skills on me. I'd eat one of the alligators first.

Thankfully he didn't raise the issue again, but a second one popped up in its place. Over extra-large servings of trifle, Millicent finally brought up the topic I'd been waiting all afternoon for. "We're a bit low on cash lately, Draco," she said, swigging her dandelion wine.

Weasley looked up, confused, but I merely braced myself and asked, "How much do you need?"

"A couple thousand ought to do it."

I choked on my wine, but, really, it could've been worse. "I'll write out a promissory note, then."

"Thank you."

Weasley opened and shut his mouth several times, but when I gave him the coldest look of which I am capable he shook his head and put away most of his glass of wine in one gulp.

Those of us who'd spent most of the day hiking across Alabama turned in early; Millicent pointed us to the guest bedroom. The _singular_ guest bedroom, I wish to emphasize. Which, in case you hadn't caught on at this point, had only one bed. "Bloody hell," I said, stopping short in the doorway.

"What?" Weasley peeked around me. "Oh."

"Yes."

"At least it's big."

I stared at him, but he calmly shouldered past me and sat down on the edge of the bedwhich, all right, _was_ rather epic in proportions. He started to remove his shoes. "You don't have a problem with this?"

"Not at all," he said calmly. "I've slept in worse places."

Was he implying that sleeping with me was some kind of a _punishment? _I scowled. "I have no desire to spend the night with you snoring in my ear, thank you."

"Then sleep on the floor."

Bastard. I sat down at the little writing desk in the corner and conjured some parchment and a quill. "Could you at least find an alternative to your usual sleeping attire?" I asked icily while I started drafting the promissory note.

I heard Weasley pause undressing behind me. "And what do you know about my usual sleeping attire?"

I blotted the parchment. _Shit, _how had I let that slip? "Those y-fronts are absolutely disgusting," I said quickly. "Though I suppose you can't afford new ones, can you?"

Weasley didn't rise to the bait, though, and the undressing noises continued. "So which one is Bulstrode with, anyway?" he asked casually. "Crabbe or Goyle?"

"Actually, I believe they sort of share her."

Another pause. "...I think I'm scarred for life."

"And you don't even get their Christmas cards."

After a few moments I sensed him come up behind me, reading over my shoulder. "That the money she asked for?"

"It is."

He watched me write for a moment, then snorted. "Nothing like a little extortion between friends, is there?"

"I beg your pardon?" I dropped my quill and turned to look at him; he was shrugging off his borrowed shirt. "I would hardly call that 'extortion.'"

"Yeah? So what would you call it?"

"Business."

_"Business?"_

"You've heard of the term, I expect?"

Weasley sputtered. "Butyouthey're meant to be your _friends,_ Malfoy!"

"They _are_ my friends," I said, with a bit more conviction behind it than I felt. "And I'm asking them an enormous favor. It's only practical to decide up front what everyone's obligations are to everyone else and get them out of the way."

"So you treat them like any other business deal?"

"Of course not," I said. "If they weren't my friends, I would've haggled."

Weasley blinked at me, then muttered a few uncomplimentary things about Slytherins.

"Oh, come on," I said, "don't get all Gryffindor-y-er-than-thou. At least we're honest about what we're doing."

"Who's dishonest?" he asked indignantly.

"Weasley," I said, crossing my arms, "you expect your friends to do favors for you, yes? And you expect to have to repay those favors at a later date?"

"Well...yeah...."

I smiled; he could sense the trap closing. "Then why not pay them back immediately and clear the debt instead of letting it hang between you? What if they come back in ten years and ask for something outrageous?"

"I trust my friends," he said bitterly. "And part of the reason we're friends is that they don't treat favors like a financial obligation."

"If I didn't trust my friends, we wouldn't be here," I said, turning back to the desk. "I simply don't see the point in maintaining the illusion that our motives are altruistic."

"You don't believe in doing something just for the sake of being nice to someone?"

I snorted. "No one's motives are that pure, Weasley. There's always something to gain, even if it's just good karma or positive publicity or brownie points with God. As I said, the only difference between my friends and the rest of the world is whether or not I choose to haggle."

Weasley was silent for a long time after that. I turned around to continue writing out the promissory note, and heard the bedsprings squeal as they took on his weight. Finally he said, softly, "So you bought Crabbe and Goyle an alligator farm because they helped you escape from South Africa."

"It's been a lifelong ambition of theirs, actually."

"And now you're paying them a small fortune so they'll help us get toget out of America."

"Excellent deduction skills, Weasley."

"So what do you want from me?"

I stopped short, but managed not to blot the parchment this time. "Excuse me?"

"You saved my life this morning, in Newark," Weasley said. "That's a pretty fucking big favor."

"That was a practical consideration," I said without looking up. "You're useful to have around when you're not bleeding or passing out."

"I'm flattered." I heard him sit up. "But that's not how it works, Malfoy. You said it yourself before you floated me, I _owe_ you now. How do you expect me to pay you back?"

I clenched my fist around the quill and thought rapidly. I hadn't intended that comment seriously, but if he took it that way...well, what was a life worth? What could I ask of him, and what would he actually do in return? Damn it, that sounded like a philosophical question, and I hate philosophy almost as much as levitation, modern art and Harry Potter. "I'll think about it," I told him.

"About what? Whether or not to haggle?"

"About a lot of things, if I have your permission." I glanced over my shoulder at him; he was sitting with one knee pulled up, wearing just his bandages and a pair of Goyle's trousers, staring. Again. "Do you intend to sleep tonight?"

"You're the one who's all for clearing debts."

"At the appropriate time and place."

"Who decides what's appropriate? 'Cause I'm willing to settle this here and now."

I quickly finished writing out the promissory note, but didn't sign itnot until I'd seen the sum. I wasn't _that_ trusting. "Weasley," I said, "I refuse to discuss this right now. Go to fucking sleep."

"When do you want to discuss it, then?"

"How about when the sun shines in Hell?"

I stood up and began to toe off my shoes. Weasley climbed to his feet and folded his arms across his bandages, scowling. "I'm just playing by your rules, Malfoy," he said. "I want to clear this up now so we can concentrate on more important things."

I snorted and tried to pull off my socks. "If you're having trouble concentrating, Weasley, I assure you it is no fault of mine."

"Yes it is!" He practically snarled; I paused with my socks in my hand. "I need to know you're not going to hold this over my head so you can get your way on decisions that affect the both of us."

"Like what?"

"Like going to Britain."

He just had to bring up _that_ again. I threw my socks across the room and flung myself onto the bed. "Weasley, that decision had already been made."

"It's the safest place to go"

"And also the most obvious!"

"I've got my own set of friends who will protect us _without_ a payoff."

"Well, congratulations. But as I've already got two homicidal maniacs hunting me, I don't particularly see the need to add the Ministry of Magic to the bunch."

"It's worth the risk!"

"Pardon me if I don't share your suicidal recklessness."

"Then call in a favor."

_"What?"_

Weasley suddenly sat on meall right, to be perfectly honest, he _straddled_ me, putting his weight on my thighs, and braced himself against the headboard so that he loomed over me. "You don't want to go to Britain?" he hissed. "Call in a favor. Tell me that you saved my life and I owe you and we're not going to Britain."

I pushed myself up on my elbows and tried to throw him off me. "I thought you said this was a decision for both of us."

"Your safety is my responsibility, Malfoy. That's my assignment."

I laughed in his face. "Weasley, that assignment was a set-up and your bosses are now trying to kill you."

"That doesn't change anything."

"It changes everything!" What the fuck was Weasley's problem? We were only thrown together by the most ridiculous of circumstances, there was _nothing_ stopping either of us from walking away except convenience. And why the fuck did he have to climb on top of me and stare at me like that, _breathe_ on me like that, fucking _tempt _me with his charm breaking and his sneaking to Britain and his sleeping fucking naked in the same fucking bed

He dropped his hands so they were planted next to my head, so that he was leaning close enough to brush the end of my nose with his. "It changes nothing," he snarled, "and tomorrow morning I'm going to tell Crabbe and Goyle that we're going to Britain"

I smirked. "And I'll tell them we're _not._ We'll see whom they listen to."

"This isn't your decision to make!"

"You don't have a monopoly on unilateral decisions here."

"I'm doing this with your best interests in mind."

"So am I."

"Then say it"

"Make me."

Weasley's lips curled back. "Selfish little bastard!"

"Reckless son of a b_wha_!"

He kissed me. This seems very abrupt, because it was, and it seems very inadequate because I don't believe there's a word in the English language that captures the sort of tongue-thrusting, teeth-grinding, hair-clutching exchange of saliva that Weasley inflicted on me, especially considering that, given all those descriptors, I rather liked it. He practically yanked out a double handful of my hair and his mouth tasted like fried catfish and potatoes, but he was pressing up against me in all kinds of intimate ways and...well, okay, he's not that bad of a kisser. Or tongue-thrusting teeth-grinding hair-clutching saliva-swapper, whatever you want to call it.

I had a very brief window of absolutely clear thought for just a moment then. I considered various facts: that Weasley had drunk an awful lot of wine at dinner, that he was a reckless son of a bitch, that he could have very well been attempting to manipulate me into agreeing with him, that we were both injured. I also thought about the view through the French doors in the flat in St. Louis. I am only human, and Weasley was willing, and...well, what do you expect me to do?

I returned the kiss and gave _his _hair a retaliatory yank. He growled like a feral thing and bit down on my lower lip. And I don't think what happened the rest of the night is any proper business of yours.


	11. In which I am brutally assaulted and Weasley is right.

I woke up the following morning to discover that Weasley is a snuggler. I was lying on my side and he was spooned up behind me with one arm draped across my torso; I could feel his breath moving against the back of my head. Under other circumstances it might've actually been a comfortable positionsuch as Iceland in Januarybut as it was I was sweating terribly and that crystal necklace was digging into of my neck. I tried to throw his arm off. It came directly back, and he started to stir.

"Mmmm...."

"Could you get off?" I asked.

"...mmm?"

"Only I'm rather uncomfortable here."

Weasley's hand performed a quick tactile inventory of my chest, arm, stomach and hip, and then he exhaled sharply. "Shit."

I sat up as he rolled away and started hobbling stiffly around the room; my own body wasn't too pleased with yesterday's workouts, either. "Do I get a 'good morning'?" I asked.

"Shit." Weasley located his trousers and tossed them on the end of the bed.

"How about a 'thanks for the brilliant shag,' then?"

"Fuck _off_, Malfoy."

I folded my arms across my chest. "If this is how you go about all your mornings after, it's a miracle they're not queuing up around the block for a night with you."

He paused, and leaned dramatically against the wall. "Malfoy, do you have any idea what a _bad_ idea this was?"

"Why, wasn't it good for you?"

He flushed even redder than his sunburn. "It's nothing to do withlook, I'm supposed to protect you, notyouthis is against every regulation in the book!"

"Regulations?" I asked, and laughed. "Weasley, you don't seem to have a firm handle on the situation. Regulations and assignments don't matter terribly much when your employer is trying to _kill_ you."

"They still matter to me," he said mulishly.

"Then you are an idiot, not that we didn't know that before."

He growled. "You're completely missing the point."

"Then enlighten me, O wise one."

"I don't even like you!"

I snorted. "As if that's a prerequisite for sex."

Weasley apparently gave up on finding his y-frontsI vaguely hoped that Millicent would feed them to an alligatorand shoved his legs into his trousers. "Whatever. Look. Let's just forget this ever happened and never speak of it again to anyone."

"I think," I said, "that I'm getting a bit offended here."

"What? Why?"

"Why are you being such a drama queen about this?" He flinched on the word _queen;_ I filed that away for future reference. "We're two grown men who shared and ill-timed and irrational fuck. The sky is, I am relatively certain, staying up."

"You don't understand," he said. "This is wrong on so many levels. I'm going to take a shower."

"Gee, thanks," I said to the door as it shut, then flopped back into the sheets. I hadn't expected a marriage proposal, especially given the context, but I'd at least hoped Weasley would be _rational_ about it. It was a one-time incident. An extremely good one-time incident, but...it wasn't like it was going to happen ever again, right? I'd indulged my inner schoolboy. We had more important things to be doing. There was no need to get hysterical. And even if it did happen again, it still wouldn't mean anything because there wasn't anything for it to mean, except that Weasley had issues with his sexual identity and self-control.

Besides, he'd seemed to be enjoying it at the time.

I dressed and shuffled into the kitchen, where Goyle and Millicent were demolishing huge piles of fried eggs and sausage. "Good morning," I said. Millicent poured me a cup of coffee with one hand while shoveling down eggs with the other. "Thank you. Er, where's Crabbe?"

Goyle, thankfully, paused to swallow. "Mobile. Arranging some things."

"Ah. Er, good."

After a few minutes, though, Goyle wiped his mouth and looked up at me. "You didn't say you and Weasley were fucking."

I sprayed coffee all over the table.

"Woulda been nicer to him if you had."

"Weasley and I aren't fucking," I said.

"We heard you"

"That was...an exception." I wiped the coffee off my face. "Trust me, it will never happen again."

He and Millicent looked at each other, and Millicent smirked, but didn't say anything.

"You," I told them, "are jumping to conclusions."

Weasley came in with his hair still dripping and sat as far away from me as physically possible. Millicent poured him a cup of coffee and served us both plates. We all concentrated on eating for a few moments. Then Weasley said quietly, "Basil."

I looked up at him, but he was staring intensely at the spice jars. "What about him?"

"He's got to be connected to Greenplate," Weasley sipped his coffee and kept staring. In case you haven't yet noticed, he is the sort of person whose brain doesn't work properly unless he's talking to himself; if he was going to do his thinking at the table, I resigned myself to the role of interlocutor.

"Why," I asked, "must he be connected to Greenplate?"

"Because if Greenplate really was murdered, only someone like O'Guin could've done itsomeone with access and authority, someone the Healers and the Enforcers wouldn't think twice about letting in to see a prisoner on suicide watch."

"And if he wasn't murdered?"

Weasley drummed his knuckles on the tabletop. "It still comes back to Greenplate, doesn't it? You were reporting on Greenplate to the Confederation. O'Guin was in charge of the investigation. He'd been working on smuggling crimes for his whole career, as far as I know....maybe Basil was in business with Greenplate, too?"

"There is more than one import-export company in America, Weasley."

"I know that, but how else would you have gotten mixed up with him?"

I rolled back over to face the wall. "Perhaps I was really reporting on Basil's illicit activities and O'Guin diverted the investigation to Dies to protect himself."

For the first time all meal Weasley met my eyes. "There is one way to find out..."

Bloody hell, not this again. "You just don't give up, do you?" I asked.

"Not when we need to know."

"My answer is still 'no,' Weasley."

"Think of it as a favor."

I raised my eyebrow at him; his ears went red, but he didn't look away. "I seem to recall you whining last night because you already owe me something."

"You didn't seem eager to call in the debt," he replied.

I threw my fork down. "I already said no."

"Malfoy, I wouldn't even suggest it if I thought I was going to kill you."

"I lack your confidence."

"Don't you want to know? Aren't you the littlest bit curious?"

"Of course I'm 'a bit curious'," I snapped. "It's my mind that's been tampered with!"

"So why don't you _do_ something about it?"

"Because I like my brain the way it functions now!"

I wiped my mouth with my napkin and leapt to my feet; Weasley stood, too, arms folded across his chest. "You know what, Malfoy?" he said. "I think you're scared."

"Of getting killed?" I asked. "Of course I am."

"I mean you're scared of remembering."

"What an absurd"

I tried to leave; he slid around the table and grabbed my arm. "You're scared of what you might remember because you don't want to admit that you were cooperating with the Confederation. You don't really want to know what you did to piss of Dies or why Basil is after you, because then you wouldn't be the poor innocent victim who's gotten dragged into this against his will by the big bad Weasel."

"Don't flatter yourself," I snapped, and shook him off. Weasley took a step to the side and blocked the door. "Get out of my way."

"We need to know what was really happening at Greenplate and Company," he said. "We need to know who Basil is and whether anything O'Guin told me is true."

"We can find out another way," I said.

_"What _other way?"

_"Find one!"_

I left the kitchen by the other door, and Weasley wasn't quite quick enough to catch me. "Where are you going?" he demanded.

"To pet the alligators."

Goyle frowned, and called after me, "You really shouldn't do that..."

I went outside and stood on the end of the dock that formed their front porch. Even this early in the morning, the heat and humidity were already oppressive. My train of thought at that point was rather jumbled and kept flitting to things I'd like to do to Weasley, pleasurable and not, but somehow I kept circling back to the same damn sticking point again and again. There _was_ information to be gained by breaking the charm. Perhaps, if we ever agreed on where we were going, I could hold out for a proper Obliviator to break the charmassuming we could even find one without getting caught by the Confederation, of course.

But Weasley was set on going to Britain and probably wouldn't change his mind unless I could prove to him that it was a horrible ideasince clearly my outstanding warrants and the sheer obviousness of such a plan weren't going to impede him. And, despite the intense security on the farm, I felt it was only a matter of time before O'Guin thought to look here. The longer we stayed in any one place, the more danger we were in, and the more danger we were putting Crabbe, Goyle and Bulstrode in. We couldn't waste time investigating Basil from here, we couldn't waste time arguing about where to run to, and meanwhile all the answerswell, most of the answerswere locked up inside my brain, under the charm...

I really fucking _hate_ it when Weasley's right.

Crabbe and the self-rowing boat came gliding through the trees just then, and I stood back while he climbed onto the dock. For some reason he had a very damp, outraged-looking gray cat under his arm; he smiled and held it out to me, where it writhed violently. "Found her near the water," he said. "Thought Millie would like her. 'Sides, I didn't want a gator to get her, it might get sick."

"That's...sweet of you," I said. "Did you make the arrangements for us to leave?"

He shrugged. "Got to know where you're going to go first, don't I?"

I thought about saying _Australia,_ but I didn't particularly want to incite another fight on the subject with Weasley; there was no guarantee it would lead to such pleasurable results a second time. "We'll work on that."

I stepped into the kitchen ahead of Crabbe and had a split second to register the end of Weasley's wand pointed at my face before he shouted, _"Memento memini!" _Crabbe, thankfully, caught me before I hit the floor.

I blacked out for a bit.

When I came to, I was lying on a couch in the living room, while the other four talked quietly around me, and I had what was likely the worst headache of my life. Weasley was the first to notice that I was awake and leaned over me. "All right, Malfoy?"

"I don't know," I said, "how many fingers am I holding up?"

"That's rude."

I struggled into a sitting position. "So is assault."

Weasley looked at Goyle and Millicent, who shrugged. "Sorry, but you were out-voted. It's just too important."

"Remind me to maim you all later." My face felt about as fine as can be expected, so I assumed he hadn't left a mark, but bloody _hell,_ my head was pounding....

Everyone stared at me for several minutes, then Weasley asked, "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Did it _work?"_

"How am I supposed to know?" I asked. I didn't feel any different; no flash bulbs were going off in my brain. Perhaps Weasley had fouled up the charm or something.

He leaned in closer to me. "Where did you first meet O'Guin?"

"In a park," I said, and I was as surprised as anyone, because I actually _knew. _"I met him in a park in Boston, after I sent the first set of invoices." It was all right there, in my head, as if I'd never forgotten it: I could even remember the miserable damp of the day, and O'Guin's smooth assurances that everything would be taken care of...bastard.

Weasley grinned like an idiot and pumped his fist in the air. "Right, so what happened at Greenplate's company? How did you find out about Dies?"

I tried to think back; not all my memories were as sharp and clear as that first meeting with O'Guin, and there were still a few blank spotsWeasley hadn't lifted the charm cleanly. But I thought I could remember enough. "Kidd," I said. "I was looking into delinquent accounts and she explained Greenplate's arrangement, the dummy company and such. She said she was too scared to go to the authorities herself..."

"Who's Kidd?" Goyle asked.

"The cinnamon bottle." Weasley leaned forward eagerly. "Right. So you kept meeting with O'Guin? Delivering invoices?"

"Right, right, all on Dies...they sent him to me when the first set turned out to be accurate..." The headache made it difficult to think clearly. "When was the last meeting?"

"June fourth, according to O'Guin."

I tried to remember what I was doing on June fourth. I bought new dress robes for the Stiffles' party, I called my accountant..."I met him in Baltimore that day," I said, as the details resolved themselves. "I had...something to tell him. Something important."

"Did it involve Kidd?"

"Yes, yes it did..." But all the details were lost in a fuzzy hazethis was presumably the day he'd Obliviated me. "What did he tell you I said?"

"O'Guin said that you demanded money from the Confederation and then huffed off when he said you weren't getting any."

Crabbe snorted. "You mean they weren't even paying you?"

"Of course they were paying me," I said. "Just not in anything so crude as cash."

And there, as clear and bright as day, was the reason I'd gone to the Confederation in the first placethe reason I'd been wondering about for a week. It was so obviously I wanted to kick myself.

"How were they paying you if they weren't using money?" Goyle asked.

I cleared my throat. "O'Guin promised...that if I cooperated fully...the Confederation would lean on the Ministry to rescind the warrants. And I could return to Britain."

Three pairs of eyes stared at me with something like envy, and I thought about how very far from home we all were. After a few moments, Weasley coughed nervously. "Kidd's remains were found two days before that last meeting," he said quickly. "So you knew that Dies had killed her when you saw O'Guin."

I started to say _yes_ and stopped again. I remembered being agitated waiting for the meeting, I remembered that there was something about Kidd...but something wasn't fitting into place. "I remember talking about Kidd, yes, but...Dies didn't kill her."

"_What_?"

"Dies didn't kill Kidd," I said again. "I'm quite certain."

"So who did kill Kidd?" he asked dumbly

"How the hell should I know?" I snapped. "I don't know how I even know Dies didn't kill her, she wasn't exactly a friend."

"But she had to be helping you get the invoices on Dies," Weasley said. "Maybe Basil killed her?"

"It's awfully easy to ascribe a crime to an individual we know nothing about," I said tartly. "I can't remember anyone who might be Basil, so we still don't know what his role is in this except sending O'Guin to kill us."

Weasley looked thoughtful for a moment. "Maybe Kidd found out something about Basil the same way she found out about Dies. She might've told you before she was killed and asked you to take it to the Confederation."

I considered this; it certainly sounded plausible, but there was a lingering bit of wrongness about it, something that seemed off. "I don't know," I finally said. "I just remember that Dies didn't kill Kidd...but I talked about her with O'Guin the day he Obliviated me."

There was a moment of thoughtful silence. Weasley rolled his wand between his fingers. "It probably wouldn't help to cast the charm again..."

"If you point that at me, I'll kill you."

He sighed. "Well, at least we're sure of our situation now. The next step..."

Weasley stared at me and I sighed. There was nowhere to go that was not within reach of the Confederation, except for a few piddling little countries in the most primitive reaches of Asia where they hadn't even heard of bathing. I had contacts in a few countries but could not trust any of them to the degree I trusted Crabbe and Goyle. I was, frankly, running out of options.

But Weasley had connections in England, not the least of which included a small army of relatives and Harry fucking Potter himself. If we could get to them without my being descended upon by a horde of Aurors. If we could evade the small army of Enforcers and Confederation agents who were probably combing the country for us. If we could get _into_ the country in the first place without getting caught by either the American or British authorities who were doubtlessly already searching for us.

Weasley had been...well, not precisely _right_ about the Memory Charm, but it hadn't killed me. And the best place to hide was often the first place someone would look.

Damn it.

"How do we get to Britain from here?" I asked Goyle.

Weasley's eyes came very close to rolling out of his face.


	12. In which Weasley and I spend twelve hours in crate.

The rest of the day was spent conferring with Crabbe and Goyle about the plan for getting out of the country. They could not, of course, accompany us into Britain, being under the same threat of arrest as I, but they were able to handle the public aspects of the arrangements while Weasley and I argued about the rest.

"I am not," I told him flatly, "traveling in a Muggle machine."

"You've ridden in cars before," he said, "we took that Metro thingy around Washington on Tuesday. This isn't any different."

"Muggles. Can't. Fly."

"Look, my dad showed me one of these things when I was a kid" He started scribbling on a spare piece of parchment, something that looked like a cross between a crucifix, a bus and a hummingbird in a Full-Body Bind. "and they go up...somehow...but look, they've got wheels, they land, too"

"I don't want to ride in any sort of air bane and that's final."

He glared at me, and then looked at Millicent as if she were going to help. She shrugged her massive shoulders at him and went back to chopping up a slab of pork as big as my torso. "Malfoy," Weasley said, "the Confederation is probably observing every Portkey and fireplace in Britainnot that I'd want to spend that long in the Flooand we can't Apparate that far. The only Muggle means of getting there are air banes or ships, and a ship would take a couple of weeks."

"How long does an air bane take?"

He consulted the pieces of paper that Goyle had owled from Mobile. "Welldepending on which way they goten or twelve hours."

"Twelve hours on a flying bus with you," I muttered. "Super."

"You've survived spending the past week with me," he muttered.

"That was before _you_ became such a drama queen."

Weasley walked out of the room; I sighed. Why couldn't he have waited to get hung up about sex until we were out of mortal peril?

Either way, quite a lot of owls were sent back and forth between the Lucky Lizard Alligator Farm and Mobile, and Weasley eventually deigned to inform me that there was a flight leaving early in the morning which would put us down in a place called Heathrow at midnight, British time. Given how our best-laid plans had been working out as of late, I immediately went around back and began practicing hexes.

And, true to form, things began to go wrong about dinnertime. Once again, Weasley sat as far away from me as physically possible, and between bites he interrogated Crabbe and Goyle. "So the flight leaves at six-thirty, yes?"

"Yep."

"And there's only the one...whatchamacallit...overlay?"

"Yep."

"Where are the tickets?"

Crabbe looked at Goyle. Goyle started at Crabbe.

"Er"

"You see"

Weasley's eyes went dangerously narrow. "I know you need tickets," he said, "I've seen them."

Crabbe and Goyle looked at Millicent, who ignored them.

Suddenly a tremendous voice boomed through the whole house, rattling the glass in the windows and causing all of us to start. _"RONALD WEASLEY. RONALD WEASLEY, WE KNOW YOU ARE ON THESE PREMISES."_

Weasley's face went oatmeal-colored. "Fuck me."

I ignored the opening in favor of panic. "How the hell did they find us?"

_"COME OUT QUIETLY WITH YOU HANDS OVER YOUR HEAD AND NO ONE WILL BE INJURED."_

Goyle suddenly grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the table; Crabbe has seized Weasley by the collar. For one hideous moment I thought they had sold us out and were going to hand-deliver us to the Enforcersinstead they dragged us to a back door I hadn't examined closely during our stay.

_"IF YOU DO NOT COME OUT, WE WILL BE FORCED TO COME IN AND GET YOU."_

The door opened directly onto the stagnant water, deep in shadow. Goyle whistled softly, and a second rowboat appeared and bumped right up against the house.

_"YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES, MR. WEASLEY."_

"How did they find us?" I demanded as I climbed into the boat.

"Fuck if I know"

"Shh!" Crabbe held a finger to his lips while Goyle prodded the boat with his wand. "Lay low," he whispered. "Everything we need is in the truck already."

"How the fuck are we going to _get_ to the truck if we're surrounded?" I hissed back.

Goyle snorted. "Can't surround a house built in a swamp."

I sighed and hunkered down low in the boat. Weasley hunched over beside me, knees jamming into his chest and one hand locked around his wand. "I can Disillusion us," he hissed up at Goyle. "We'd be camouflaged"

"Don't need it," he replied.

Weasley ground his teeth, but, for once in his miserable life, didn't argue.

Crabbe and Goyle may not be the smartest men in the world, but this was their property, and they had lived here for the past four years; they guided the boat into deep shadows and through weed-choked channels buttressed by shaggy fallen limbs. The lights faded, and for a few minutes we were moving through near-total darkness; then Goyle lit his wand dimly, and the boat bumped up against a soggy bank where an extremely dodgy-looking truck was parked. It was painted primer-brown where it wasn't rusted through, and something large and ominous was strapped into the back under a blue tarpaulin. As we scrambled out of the boat, screams erupted from the swamp behind us.

"What the hell was that?" Weasley asked.

Crabbe grinned. "It's an _alligator_ farm, isn't it?"

"Oh. Oh, hell."

We piled into the truck, and Goyle coaxed the engine to life; I was certain the rumble-roar of it would draw attention to our location, but we lurched up onto the road unmolested, and eventually Goyle even felt safe enough to turn on the headlights. Weasley fumbled the air bane schedules out of his pockets. "How long will it take to get to Mobile?"

"Hour. Hour and a half."

He squinted at the writing by wandlight. "There's a flight leaving for London at eleven...lands at Gatwick...we've plenty of time, even having to get tickets first."

Crabbe and Goyle looked at each other again, and my stomach sank. "Crabbe," I asked, because he was the worse liar of the two, "are we going to need tickets for this?"

"Er...no."

Weasley scowled. "What? No. Look, I know we need tickets, I've seen them"

"Crabbe," I asked patiently, "is this going to be another South Africa?"

"...yes."

I threw my head back and sighed. "Wonderful. Just wonderful."

Weasley looked at us warily. "What do you mean, another South Africa?"

"You'll find out when we get to Mobile." There are times when it's everyone's best interest to withhold information from Weasley, including his.

We didn't talk for the rest of the drive to Mobile. It had been a mistake to come to Alabama, I realized, because it was nearly as obvious as BritainO'Guin could feasibly have staked out the home of every Slytherin exile on the continent on the off chance I would seek them out. That was the difference between running from a criminal gang and running from the government. Though if they had been watching the farm when we arrived, it had taken them an awfully long time to strikeand if they hadn't seen us go in, how could they be so sure Weasley was with me?

Goyle abruptly veered off the road on the edge of Mobile and drove the truck over open grass, towards what looked like a brightly-lit office complex with the world's biggest parking lot. Then a roaring, rushing, rumbling sound filled the air from above, and something bloody _enormous_ descended over us, blotting out the waning moon

and then it was past, swooping down onto the parking lot, while my brain struggled to accept how anything that size was permitted to stay in the air without flapping. It hit the pavement and rolled to a long, slow halt while I tried to rein in my breathing.

"I am _not_ getting on one of those things."

Weasley swallowed hard; even he looked a bit alarmed, and this had been his bloody idea. "It's too late," he said weakly, "they'll find us if we stay here any longer"

"You said that air banes were small!"

"Iwell, I mean, I've heard ofbut I'd never seen one likethatbefore..."

I buried my head in my hands. "We're going to be killed."

Goyle followed a stout chain-link fence along the edge of the air bane lot, leaving us to endure a whole series of launches and landings. He eventually stopped the truck just opposite an air bane that clearly wasn't moving for a while: it was surrounded by piles of cargo and luggage, well away from the terminal. This gave me something new to be annoyed about as we all climbed out of the truck.

"Er...Goyle?" Weasley was saying. "We need to, er, actually go into the port building to get on the air bane...I'm really quite sure of this..."

"Not getting on that way," Goyle said, and pulled the blue tarpaulin off the thing in the back, which was exactly what I'd been afraid of: a large wooden crate with the words FRAGILE THIS WAY UP stamped on the sides. Weasley stared at it as if he'd never seen one before.

"I don't suppose you brought anything to read while we're in that thing?" I asked.

Crabbe grabbed a large jug of water and what looked like a small picnic basket out of the back of the truck while Goyle wrenched the lit of the crate off. "Millie made sandwiches."

"Lovely."

Weasley miraculously re-discovered his voice. "You're sending us to England in a _crate?"_

"Yes."

"A _crate?"_

His voice was reaching registers no man past puberty should hit; I flinched. "Weasley, how do you think I got out of South Africa?"

"...in a crate?"

"Well, a trunk." I glanced inside the crate; there wasn't so much as a cushion to sit on. "But it's the same principle. Hiding in plain sight."

He buried his face in his hand, and for a moment I was afraid he'd get hysterical. But, eventually, he sighed heavily and peered into the crate. "How are we both going to fit, though?"

"We'll just have to be a bit friendly," I said, and watched him cringe.

We climbed into the crate; it was a terrible fit. As it was only about three and a half feet on each side, and Weasley was over six feet tall, he took up most of the volume with his legs. I managed to wedge myself in perpendicular to and partially underneath him, and then Crabbe passed in the water and the sandwiches. "How do we know when it's safe to get out of this thing?" Weasley asked.

"You can hear," Crabbe assured him. "We checked."

"But what about people hearing _us?"_ I asked.

"We charmed it," Goyle said, with a hint of pride. "Soundproof from the outside, airtight, watertight."

"Watertight?" I asked. "Why is it watertight?"

"Just in case..."

"In case of _what?"_

Goyle lifted the lid of the crate over our heads. "We'll get you on the air bane," he said. "Good luck."

As the lid came down, Weasley suddenly started. "WaitGoyle, don't close that yet" He tried to push it off, but they must've charmed the nails back into place; he pounded with little effect. "Damn it, we're going to be stuck in here for twelve hours, it can't be airtight!"

"Haven't you ever heard of air-refreshing charms?" I asked.

Weasley lit his wand, apparently just so I could see the evil look he was giving me. "It's the middle of the night, Malfoy. We might want to sleep eventually, and I fancy waking up again when I do!"

"We'll sleep in shifts, then," I declared, trying to settle back against the splintery wall. "Mine starts now."

Weasley sighed and tried to shift his weight; he banged his head on the lid and sat on my kneecap. Then the crate suddenly lifted, and we were tossed up against each other while, presumably, Crabbe and Goyle snuck us over to the air bane. We could hear them huffing and cursing, and I resisted the urge to suggest a bloody levitation spell.

I learned immense sympathy for my clothes from this experience: the jostling, thumping, dropping and banging against other unidentified bits of cargo must be exactly what the contents of my suitcase endure when I travel. At least my head wasn't consistently thumping against the lid of the crate with every small movement, as Weasley's was. Crabbe and Goyle dropped us, and then a group of Muggles carried us and dropped us, presumably inside the air bane. It was very stuffy inside the crate and there was no way to get comfortable. And then the air bane moved, and the whole crate shuddered, and a near-deafening mechanical drone filled the air. When it stopped, Weasley and I glanced at each other.

"I don't think," I said, "that we'll be getting much sleep."

He managed to extract his notes from his pocket and read them over again by wandlight. "This flight has a layover in Memphis and one in Frankfurt....we should make it to London by tea time."

"Wonderful."

We sat in silence. Weasley refused to look at me. As an experiment, I raised my leg slightly and rubbed my knee against the back of his calf. He abruptly tried to fold his legs under himself and ended up kicking me in the chest. _"Ow!"_

"Sorry."

"What exactly is your problem?"

"Don't," he said. "Just...don't."

"Weasley," I said, "this trip is going to be uncomfortable enough for the both of us without your neuroses coming along for the ride."

"I don't have any neuroses," he snapped.

"What, you don't call being in denial"

"I am _not in denial."_ He took a deep breath. "Look, Malfoy, I don't want to discuss it. It was a bad idea, it'll never happen again, so let's just forget it ever happened in the first place, yes?"

I rolled my eyes. "I was just trying to make conversation, you know."

"You want conversation?" He tried pulling his knees to his chest, as if that would be more comfortable. "Why did you really cooperate with the ICW?"

"What?"

"You heard me."

I folded my arms and stared into the corner. "I told you, I wanted to make a deal with the Ministry. Dies was exporting to Britain and I thought if I helped them out, they would cancel my warrants."

"You decided to cross one of the nastiest gangsters in America for that?"

"Is that so hard to believe?" I asked.

"From you? Yes."

I turned my back on him as best I could under the circumstances. "Britain is my home, Weasley, little as you and your friends may like it. The Manor is thereassuming the Ministry haven't razed it to the ground yetit's where I grew up, where my parents are buried. Is it so hard to believe that I might want a chance to return there during my lifetime?"

Weasley didn't say anything for a while, so I glanced back at him; he was shadowed oddly by the wandlight, and I couldn't read his expression. "No," he said, "guess not."

"So there you are."

"I reckon so."

The air bane eventually took off half an hour late: it is a horrifying thing to experience from the cargo hold. The noise of the engine was too loud to speak over, and once we really got into the airafter what Weasley informed me was a brief stop in Memphisthe temperature around us dropped alarmingly. We took turns casting air-refreshing charms, eating sandwiches and trying to rest. At five o'clock in the morning we finished the last of the sandwiches and Weasley transfigured the empty basket into a serviceable chess set, but I lost interest with that along with the fifth or six consecutive game. Eventually we settled into opposite corners of the crate, huddled around ourselves, thinking our own thoughts. It was all quite dramatic and angsty and I recommend anyone who likes that sort of thing to post themselves across an ocean by air bane. Hopefully we shall never see you again.

I will admit to dozing off just as my watch, which was still set to Eastern Time, read nine o'clock. I was jostled awake again almost immediately by the stop in Frankfurt. I listened to the Muggles shuffling the contents of the cargo hold and tried not to dwell on our ultimate destination too terribly long, and noted when the air bane launched again that Weasley appeared quite sound asleep. I cast another air-refreshing charm, and remember distinctly thinking, _I suppose I'd better let him sleep, he'll need to be alert when we get to London._

The next thing I knew, I was landing on top of Weasley as our crate was quite rudely dumped somewhere. The empty jug smashed against the side of the crate, and my foot was caught in a checkered picnic basket full of chessmen. Weasley jolted awake and swore. "What the fuck"

"Must be in London," I said, feeling curiously light-headed. Air, I thought, I need air...my wand had fallen out of my hand. "Wand," I said.

"I haven't got your wand," Weasley muttered, "now gerroff."

"Wand," I said, "charm."

"I know"

We fumbled and struggled, gasping in the stale air inside the crate. "Can't they read the fucking arrow?" I muttered, trying not to sit on Weasley's ankles as he groped for his wand along the wall.

"Malfoy, now is not the fucking _time"_

The lid of the crate, which was now the side, suddenly burst off. Weasley, who had been leaning against it, topped backwards onto sun-soaked pavement. I, who had been leaning against Weasley, landed on top of him. For a moment I simply gasped for breath in the clean air, before I registered the all-too-familiar voice above me.

"Place your hands where I can see them. You're...what the fucking hell?"

I froze; underneath me, Weasley looked up past my shoulder and smiled the smile of a very nervous man. "Er...hello, Harry."


	13. In which I am the mother of Weasley's child.

"Ron? What the _hell_?"

I craned my neck back, squinting against the sun on the air bane lot, and there they were: Potter and Granger, dressed in Muggle suits, training their wands on us in Ministry-approved Auror style. "Oh, _fuck," _I muttered.

Weasley pushed me aside and clambered to his feet, keeping his hands up and away from his body. "Listen," he said desperately, "I know this looks weirdwell, it is weirdbut I can explain"

Granger held her wand higher and cut him off. "If you are Ronald Weasley, what's my Patronus look like?"

"Otter," Weasley sighed.

"What's your Patronus"

"I've never cast a corporeal one."

"Who was the first person you kissed?"

"As far as you know? Susan Bones."

"Which of us knocked out Snape in the Shrieking Shack?"

"We all did, trying to disarm him, can we _please_ get to the point?"

Weasley's friends kept their wands trained on him in what I found a distinctly bothersome manner, though they were beginning to look a bit more skeptical than outraged. "Ron," Potter said, "if you are Ron...when did you quit training?"

Weasley looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Harry"

"Answer the question."

"After...afterthechickenincident," he blurted. "What the hell is wrong with you two?"

Potter and Granger looked at one another and lowered their wands. "What's wrong," Granger said slowly, "is that, according to your mum, you're missing and presumed dead somewhere in Borneo."

_"WHAT?"_

He stared at them; they stared at him; I sat down on the edge of the crate and laughed. "Looks like O'Guin was a step ahead of us"

Potter and Granger suddenly noticed me; they blinked, then conjured so many ropes around my arms I felt like I was in a fucking cocoon. "_You _are under arrest," Potter said, apparently glad to have a clear-cut goal in the middle of all this confusion.

Weasley broke his trance long enough to fling an arm out in front of me. "You can't arrest him."

"Why the hell not?"

"'Cause I've already arrested him!"

"You have?" I asked.

They were staring at him like he'd lost his mind, which, under the circumstances, I can't really fault them for. "With what authority?" Potter asked.

Weasley shut his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, as though bracing himself for something really unpleasant. Then he fished that crystal charm out of his shirt collar and held it up to sparkle in the sunlight. "With the authority granted me by the International Confederation of Wizards."

Potter blinked; Granger's eyes seemed liable to fall out of her head any minute. _"Sodalitas Johannum Factotorum,"_ she whispered, reaching out to touch the pendent.

"Is that what that stands for?" I asked when I realized she wasn't casting a spell. "He wouldn't explain it to me."

"An elite secret society," Granger carried on in the same tone of voice, "whose members are ultimately answerable only to the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards..."

I leaned in towards Weasley. "Does she memorize these things?"

Potter's eyes were perfectly round behind his glasses, and he and Granger stared at Weasley incredulously. Then Granger suddenly thumped him rather hard in the chest. "You told us you were working for the newspaper!"

"Well, it is a _secret_ society"

"You could've told _us,"_ Potter said, almost petulantly.

"I wasn't allowed"

I cleared my throat. "Can we take up this argument at a later date?" I asked. "And also possibly untie me?"

Potter and Granger gave me venomous looks, but Weasley nodded furiously. "Yeah," he said, "yeah, look, shout at me later, but right now we _need_ your help, people are trying to kill us, that's why they're saying I'm dead."

Potter shook his head. "People are trying to kill you, so you hid in a packing crate?"

I wobbled to my feet and stepped in front of Weasley. "This is a very long story," I said, "and it involves gangsters, and bombs, and spice jars, and alligators. The short version is, Weasley's secret society thinks he is a traitor and two different people want to murder me, which puts us in an excessive amount of danger. Can you untie me now?"

Granger flicked her wand at me and the ropes fell loose, but she was staring at Weasley. "Is that true?"

"In the broad outlines, yes," he sighed.

"Alligators?" Potter asked.

"Like he said, it's a long story."

I dove back into the crate, found our wands, and gave Weasley his. "Out of curiosity," I asked, "why are Aurors searching the cargo of a Muggle air bane?"

"We're supposed to search anything coming into this country from North America," Potter said. "It's the biggest search operation since Sirius. A few days ago we got a warning from an agent in the US that a couple of Dark wizards might be trying to make their way here."

Weasley and I looked at each other. "Let me guess," I said, "the agent's name was O'Guin?"

"How'd you know that?"

Weasley snorted. " Hard to forget a bloke who leaves you for dead in a burning warehouse."

Potter and Granger stared at us.

"We've had a busy week," I explained.

Weasley looked from one to the other and settled on Potter. "Harry," he said, "I know what this looks like. I swear we are not playing you false. We need your help, because if O'Guin finds us, we will both very quickly be dead."

They stared into each other's eyes for so long I wondered if Granger and I should give them some privacy. Then Potter nodded and patted Weasley on the arm. "I believe you. We'll...we'll think of something, okay?"

"Harry, this place is swarming with Aurors and Enforcers," Granger said anxiously. "We might be able to slip Ron out, but Malfoy..."

"I said we'll think of something," Potter repeated.

I caught Weasley looking at me oddly, and had a sinking feeling in my stomach. "Hermione," he asked, "what sort of description did O'Guin provide of these Dark wizards?"

"He just said they were good at disguises, and not to take appearances for granted."

Weasley snatched the picnic basked out of the crate, turned it over a few times, then held it up next to me. "Why," I asked, "do I not like whatever it is you're thinking?"

"Where's the best place to hide, Malfoy?" he asked.

I sighed. "Just get it over with..."

Someone shouted across the lot; Potter looked up and swore. "That's Kingsley, we haven't got time to explain"

"Come on." Weasley dragged me behind a large stack of suitcases and cargo that screened us from view. "Take off your trousers."

"Weasley, this is hardly the time" He gave me a caustic glare; I gave him my trousers. Weasley prodded them with his wand and transfigured them into a long skirt. "I knew I wouldn't like this."

"They're looking for wizards," he said, and ripped the handle off the basket. "Now put the skirt on and stuff this underneath."

"What?"

He smirked. "Congratulations, Malfoy, you're pregnant."

I sighed. "I hate you and wish you dead, Weasley."

"That's no way to speak to the father of your child, is it?" He transfigured my shirt into a blouse, then took off his own socks and handed them to me. "Here, have some breasts."

"This is ludicrous."

"It will work if Harry and Hermione do their bit."

I stuffed the socks into my blouse, then used an Engorgement charm until they seemed an appropriate size. "I hope you realize," I said, "that all Aurors are not complete idiots?"

"No, at the moment they're probably bored and tired and sick of frisking Muggles. Hold still."

My hair exploded; that is the only way I can describe it. It burst from my scalp in great sheets that fell down to my knees. _"Weasley!"_

"Sorry, sorry..." He sheered it off just below my shoulders. "You're hair's thinner than mine...don't suppose you have a comb?"

I snorted as he tried to style my hair with his fingers. "If I didn't already know you were a pouf, Weasley, I'd_holy shit!"_

He'd gone the Hagrid route again, and he laughed at my reaction. "What were you saying about poufs?"

"Never mind." I shoved the broken basket under my skirt. "This isn't going to stay..."

"Let me have a look"

"No thanks!"

Weasley knelt down and stuck his head under my skirt, while I prayed for death. To complete the picture, Potter stuck his head around the side of a stack of boxes and said "Ron, we put him off, I don't think _oh my GOD."_

"Be just a minute, Harry," Weasley said.

I forced myself to smile. "He's adjusting my basket."

Potter blinked. "Right. I'll just...right."

Potter and Granger both did double takes when we emerged from our hiding place in full disguise. "Well?" Weasley asked. "How do we look?"

Granger frowned. "Well, Malfoy could use more make-up, but since I don't have any on me...what exactly do we do now?"

"Now," Weasley said, "you take us in and search us."

"How will that"

"Once we're searched and cleared, no one will look at us twice," Weasley said. "Come on, before someone else finds us."

Weasley took my arm, which I grudgingly permitted, and Potter and Granger led us into the air port. It was quite busy, and we nearly lost track of our "escort" several times. We departed from the main concourses, passed small guarded rooms labeled "Security" and "Customs," and eventually came to a plain white door with no knob at the end of a hallway. A man in a suit like Potter's with wiry gray hair looked up from his magazinea poorly disguised copy of the _Quibbler._ He looked at me, and then at Weasley, and then he snorted loudly. "You're searching these two?"

"Orders are orders, Dawlish," Potter said stiffly.

Dawlish snorted. "What, you think she's hiding Dark wizards under her skirt?"

"Dawlish, just open the door," Hermione said testily. "And put that away, we're supposed to be in deep cover."

"Eh, fine, keep your hair on." He discretely tapped the white door, which popped open, and rolled up the magazine into his jacket pocket.

The white door lead into a white corridor lined with similar doors, except these had small windows set in them. Thought the windows I could see witches and wizards in Muggle clothes carefully searching and questioning people in various state of undress. Potter and Granger stopped at the very last white door in the corridor and charmed it open just as one of the doors we'd already passed opened up, and a horrifyingly familiar voice filled the hall.

"doubt they made it among the passengers, they wouldn't have had the Muggle documents required to get tickets, and Gringotts has put holds on both their accounts"

_O'Guin,_ I mouthed to Weasley, who nodded stiffly

"Who are these guys, anyway?" someone else asked.

"That's classified information."

"Well, how the hell are we supposed to catch them if we don't know who they are?"

"I don't think it will be too difficult..."

Potter dragged us into the interrogation room and shut the door firmly behind him. "Was that"

"Yeah," Weasley said. "Fuck, that was close."

"Millicent must've let them find all those notes you took," I said. "Either that, or Crabbe and Goyle got caught leaving Mobile."

"Crabbe and Goyle?" Harry asked skeptically.

Weasley sighed, and launched into an abbreviated explanation of the situation that nevertheless took up about twenty minutes. I discovered that it was impossible to sit down comfortably with the basket strapped to my stomach, but I didn't want to risk Weasley taking it upon himself to re-attach it for me, so I leaned against the wall and provided editorial commentary.

"sealed us inside the crate and got us loaded onto the plane. And, well, twelve hours later..."

"And here I thought I had an interesting job," Potter muttered.

"'Interesting' puts it mildly," Weasley said. "And you said that I'm supposed to be dead?"

Granger nodded. "According to your mum, someone from the newspaper came around yesterday and told her you went missing in Borneo and were presumed dead."

"But the clock"

"Has been stuck on 'Mortal Peril' for a couple of days," Potter said. "So nobody's known what to think. This bloke couldn't exactly explain what you'd been doing in Borneo, but then someone from the Ministry came around with a death certificateGinny hexed him, but Bill's been out shopping for grave markers."

Weasley groaned. "Brilliant. Just...brilliant."

Granger checked her watch. "We can't stay in here much longer or someone will come looking. What exactly was the next part of your plan?"

"We need a safe place to stay for a few days, first," Weasley said, and I swore his eyes flicked over towards me for a moment.

"Remus lives at Grimmauld Place," Potter said. "You can take the Knight Bus thereI'll owl ahead so he knows you're coming."

"We'll come by when we get off duty," Granger said as she checked the corridor. "We've, er, got a lot to talk about."

Weasley flinched a bit. "Yeah, I reckon we do."

Potter escorted us back into the air port proper and loaned us fare for the Knight Bus; let it be recorded as the one and only time I will ever accept a handout from him. We summoned the bus from the far side of a parking lot and Weasley maintained our privacy by wrapping an arm around my shoulders and looking surly. With hair like that, the other passengers gave us more than sufficient space to talk privately.

"A newspaper?"

"I had to tell them something," he said, sounding grumpy. "Unemployed people generally aren't up for much international travel."

"What, just saying you were doing classified work for the government wasn't enough?"

"Am I the only person in this country who understands the meaning of the word 'secret?'"

"Sorry." I stared at the window, watching space obligingly distort itself so that the bus could pass. "So what was the chicken incident?"

"What?"

I tried to discretely adjust my basket. "Potter asked you when you quit the Aurors and you said 'after the chicken incident.'"

Weasley folded his arms across his chest and glowered spectacularly. "I don't want to talk about it."

"We're going to be on this bus a while" I said as it banged from London to Liverpool"and I'm curious."

"It's none of your business."

"We could talk about sex instead"

He huffed spectacularly and leaned close to me, practically whispering. "Look...look, you have to understand, just about everyone I know told me that I shouldn't even bother to apply for Auror training because I wasn't wizard enough for the job."

"Obviously the Ministry thought otherwise."

"Yeah..." He settled back into his seat and watched the shifting scenery. "Yeah, except Harry and Hermione came in to training at the same time. We were the first set of trainees they'd accepted in something like five years."

"And did ickle Weasley feel a certain sense of inadequacy?"

"No," he said, and didn't speak for another three stops. "But I knew...I knew everyone was going to compare us, at everything. And I knew I was going to come off badly."

I nodded. "So what's this all got to do with chickens?"

He folded his arms across his chest and slumped down in his seat. "I knew I couldn't be as clever as Hermione or as powerful as Harry, so I had to work harder than the two of them put together. I spent every waking moment studying or practicing or...something. And for a while, it workedI got perfect scores on the first two evaluations."

"But then it all went catastrophically wrong?" I guessed.

"I...went a little bit overboard," he said slowly. "Started using Wakefulness Draughts and Alertness Brews so I could work all hours."

I rolled my eyes. "Half of Hogwarts uses those things to cram for exams, Weasley."

"I didn't sleep for a month."

"...oh."

He shut his eyes. "I ended up pulling a Hannah Abbott in the middle of a meeting with our supervisors. Cracked completely."

"How so?"

"I don't actually remember it," he sighed, "but according to Harry I barricaded myself under Kingsley Shacklebolt's desk and tried to transfigure anyone within reach into a large chicken."

You will congratulate me at this point for not actually laughing.

"They didn't kick me out, surprisingly enough," Weasley continued. "Said I could take some time off to catch up on my sleep and come back when I was ready. I told them no."

I shook my head. "So you wasted all the effort."

"It got me into the S.J.F., didn't it?" he said, looking genuinely surly now. "They recruited me just after I quit."

"If you say so..."

He glared at me, but then the bus banged again and we were suddenly back in London, in the shabbiest, dirtiest corner of the city I could possibly imagine. "This is our stop," he said, and manhandled me to my feet.

"This is no way to treat the mother of your child."

"Shut up."

The spotty little conductor didn't dare touch me, and after he opened the door he squeezed out of the way as if Weasley might bite if he got too close. The bus disappeared, leaving us on a grim-looking street corner in the late afternoon sun. "Where do we go now?" I asked.

Weasley looked around, and without a word took off walking down the grimy street_._ I sighed, hitched up my basket and followed.


	14. In which Weasley is completely irrational about numerous things.

Weasley walked off his mood, though I nearly lost track of him in the process (bloody long-legged nuisance that he is). We needed only to travel a few blocks, practically a Sunday stroll after Alabama, before we came to the saddest, ugliest old excuse for a domicile I have ever seen. Well, that's not precisely true, because I've seen pictures of Weasley's parents' house; there was something especially depressing about this one, though. Perhaps it was the decayed remnants of what had clearly been an elegant façade, or maybe the sense that it might have been inhabitable with a new coat of paint and a kind word or two. I hated it on sight.

We ducked into an alley to adjust our clothes before approaching the door. "What the hell is this place?" I asked as I shed my basket.

"Grimmauld Place."

"Well, I gathered that..."

"It used to belong to Sirius Black." Weasley tapped his jaw with his chin, and his beard fell down in heaps onto the pavement. "He left it to Harry, and Harry's all but left it to Remus."

I supposed that explained the sense of neglect. "Can this Remus character be trusted?"

Weasley's smile quirked. "Well, I'd trust him with my life..."

"That's not an answer," I muttered darkly. "Dammit, what did you do to my trousers?"

Weasley untransfigured my trousers and knocked on the door of Number Twelve. No one answered. Weasley knocked again, while I glanced around nervously, but the only sign of life in the whole area was the gray tabby cat stalking between the rubbish bins. "Weasley," I mumbled, "where is he?"

"He should be here," he muttered, nearly ripping the knocker off the door, "he hardly ever leavesand the full moon was Tuesday."

"Might he...wait, what do you mean, full moon?"

But then the door finally swung open and I got my answer: the bloody _werewolf_ was standing on the other side of the door, smiling benignly. "Ron," he said warmly, "good to see youI was in the kitchen, I wasn't sure I head you knocking"

"That's all right," Weasley said hastily. "Did Harry"

"I got his owl. Come inside." He looked me in the eye and nodded. "Mr. Malfoy."

"Lupin," I said stiffly, and folded my arms across my chest. I had an adolescent urge to stamp my feet and say rude things, but he was beckoning me in and Weasley had already shouldered past himwith one last glance at the street and the cat, I slipped inside, cursing Potter and Weasley and all the forces of fate.

The house looked even worse from the interior; someone, it seemed, had started to remodel it and lost heart about halfway through. The carpet and wallpaper had been torn away, but not replaced, and a large hole had been knocked in one wall and left to sit with sprays of splinters sticking out every which way. "I've put together a late tea," the werewolf said. "Mind your step on the stairs, though, the carpet's just been laid."

"The place looks...er...good," Weasley said.

Lupin laughed. "The renovations proceed according to Harry's attention span. What we've accomplished lately should keep him happy...oh, through Christmas, I'd say."

"You don't mind?"

"I've all the space I need..."

The kitchen was a dark and vaulty affair, but it at least seemed inhabited: the ceiling was hung with golden chandeliers, a sturdy pine table ran the length of the room, and the floor was cushioned by patterned carpets. A large platter of sandwiches and a tea service already sat at one end of the table, and after we sat down Lupin summoned a small cauldron of soup from the cooker to a cast-iron trivet. "How much did Harry say in his letter?" Weasley asked while the werewolf served.

"Just that you were back in England and needed help, and that Mr. Malfoy was an unfortunate addition." He smiled paternally at me, and I wanted to hex him. "Not in so many words, of course, but I read between the lines."

"I'm sure you do," I said stiffly. Weasley gave me an irritated look, which I ignored; I wanted to ignore the food, too, but it had been a rather long time since Millicent's sandwiches had run out. I didn't enjoy it, though.

Weasley explained our predicament over again to the werewolf, and when that topic ran out, Lupin tried to make small talk. I ignored him as best I could while Weasley's glare became steadily more pronounced. Lupin, unfortunately, didn't seem bothered; in fact, he actually had the nerve to look amused by me. This lead to another first (and last) occasion for this fiasco: I was actually glad when Potter and Granger finally arrived, at nearly eight o'clock at night.

They flopped down at the table, and Potter yanked his tie out of its loop. "It seems like you two escaped cleanly," he said. "Officially there are still no leads."

"We've seen O'Guin skulking around, though," Granger added. "It sounds like he's trying to convince the Ministry to send you two straight to the Dementors when you're caught. Bones insists he has to produce evidence of a conviction first."

"Which he won't do, because if he admits who we are, he's got an international incident on his hands faster than you can say 'Quidditch'." Weasley said, poking at a pile of crusts with a soup spoon.

"So what do we do?" I asked. "Cower here until it all blows over?"

Weasley was silent for a few moments, then said, "I actually thought I might turn myself in."

Three people shouted at the same time, _"What?"_

"The S.J.F. has ways of making people tell the truth," he said with infuriating calm. "I can go in volunteering to be tested, and it becomes my word against O'Guin's."

"And your friend Linnet's," I reminded him. "O'Guin Confunded her, remember?"

Weasley scowled. "Still. O'Guin won't be able to contradict a truth test."

"Assuming he doesn't do something to prevent you from taking them at all!"

Granger cut in. "If you're just going to surrender, what was the point of all this running around and mailing yourself to Britain?"

He glanced at me again. "My assignment was to protect Malfoy and get him to safety. I've done that now."

I blinked. "You are fucking _insane."_

"I still have a duty, Malfoy."

"What about your duty to yourself _not to die?_" I demanded. "You can't go to the Confederation without more evidence against O'Guin, or they'll never take you seriously."

"And where am I going to get more?" Weasley asked. "I can't exactly go out and investigate, and anything you don't remember is probably lost forever now."

"I could try the counter-charm," Granger said. "Or see if Boot will do it, he's a regular Obliviator"

Potter cleared his throat and looked at me as though it pained him. The feeling was quite mutual. "Hold on a moment," he said, "Malfoy, you said this Arnold Dies was smuggling magical creature parts, yes?"

"Right."

"And _you _were the one supplying all the information on his customers?"

"Yes, Potter, how thick are you"

"So," he said over me, "wethe Aurorswere involved in some strings over the past few months on importers. They must've been Dies' buyers, because the circumstances fit. Except the last one wasn't animal parts, it waserwhat's that stuff, Hermione?"

"Draught of Heaven," she said. I swore; Weasley looked around blankly. "Oh, honestly, Ron, you got an E on your Potions NEWT"

"We've already had this conversation, Granger, thanks," I said. "Weasley, the Draught of Heaven is one of the most illegal, addictive and expensive potions a wizard can brew. It fetches unbelievable prices on the street."

"It's also extremely dangerous to make," Granger added, "and the ingredients are very tightly regulated in most countries. The United States being one of the most notable exceptions."

Weasley's brows knit. "Dies sticks to poaching, though. He's never touched potions-making..."

"Which," I said quickly, "means the wizard behind the potions"

"is probably Basil"

"and I accidentally got hold of one of his invoices"

"which is why O'Guin wants to kill you!" Weasley pumped his fist in the air. "That's it! That explains everything!"

I glanced at Potter, Granger and Lupin; they were staring. "Er," Potter said, "who is Basil?"

"Long story," Weasley said. "Look, if I go to the S.J.F. and accuse O'Guin"

"They'll never take you seriously!" Granger said. "All you have is circumstantial evidence and conjecture, and half of it comes from a suspected Death Eater!"

"Malfoy was never a Death Eater," Weasley snapped.

"How do you know?" Potter and I asked at the same time, and then glared at each other.

Weasley reached over calmly and tapped the inner part of my left forearm. "No scars. Ergo, no Dark Mark. Ever."

"I could've had it somewhere else," I said, pulling my arm back.

"Remember Cincinnati?"

Oh. Right.

"Welleven if he was never a Death Eater, he's still wanted in two countries, and he can't remember half of his own evidence," Granger said warily. "He's not exactly the best possible witness on your behalf."

Weasley leaned back and folded his arms. "So what am I supposed to do, then? Sit around here waiting for someone else to catch O'Guin in the act? Spend the rest of my life in hiding?"

"No one is suggesting that," Lupin said softly, finally speaking up. "There is no need to take more risks than absolutely necessary, though." I mentally cursed him for actually saying something I agreed with, but he at least seemed to get through Weasley's thick skull. Weasley bit his lip and looked around the table, but stopped arguing the point.

We all sat staring at one another for several minutes. Finally, Granger said, "Ron, is there anyone in Britain working for the Confederation or thethe S.J.F. whom you would trust enough to contact right now?"

"Aurelius Dawson," he said promptly. "Why do you ask?"

She summoned parchment, ink and a quill from some forgotten corner of the house. "Harry or I can pass a letter through the Department of International Magical Cooperation. We'll even attach a copy of the file on the Draught of Heaven shipment. That way you can have someone else on your side before you try to take on the entire Confederation single-handedly."

He opened his mouth to protest but ended up yawning instead. After a moment he muttered "Give it here," and began to write.

Potter, Granger, Lupin and I watched.

"Could you not stare at me?" Weasley said after a minute.

We stared at each other instead. I would've rather been staring at Weasley.

Lupin suddenly stood up and banished the dishes into the sink. "It sounds as if you've had a very tiring journey, Mr. Malfoy," he said. "Let me show you one of the bedrooms."

Translation: _Let's get the hell out of here so the Wonder Twins can shout at Weasley in private_a suggestion I managed to appreciate even less than his oh-so-patronizing use of _Mr. Malfoy._ "Don't call me that," I said.

Lupin raised one gray eyebrow. "What would you like me to call you?"

"How about nothing at all?"

Three people said _"Malfoy!" _in the same vicious tone, and I got three nearly-identical icy glares. Pissing them all off at once was something I hadn't accomplished since school, and seeing the bedrooms suddenly seemed like a brilliant idea.

I followed the werewolf up to the third floor and through an obstacle course of paint cans, dropcloths and rolls of self-adhesing wallpaper. He pointed me to a door, which opened into a sad little bedroom, half-papered and stuffy. The mirror over the fireplace was cracked and the mattress was dusty and naked. "Charming," I said.

Lupin came back in with an armful of sheets and dumped then on the bed. "It's a bit of a fixer-upper," he admitted without the slightest hint of remorse. "But I'm sure you can manage to make yourself comfortable."

I looked from the heap of linens to the werewolf and back. "You expect me to do...what, exactly, with those?"

"Oh, certainly a bright young man like you can figure it out," he said. "Consider it a learning experience."

I sputtered and swore as he retreated down the hall, but stopped short of actually shoutingthe only thing worse than Lupin's cheerful calm would've been Potter, Granger and Weasley charging up the stairs with wands drawn. Instead, I fixed my best evil look on the sheets, which, predictably, ignored it entirely.

Ninety minutes later I had not succeeded in making the bed. What do you expect? It's what normal people have house-elves for. I was beginning to consider the merits of simply setting the room on fire and demanding to be relocated when Weasley walked in without knocking, looking as grumpy and exhausted as I felt. "That sheet's sideways," he said, shutting the door behind him.

I looked at the sheet I was trying to untangle and threw it down. "What do you want, Weasley? I would think that you would've already had your fill of arguments tonight from your so-called friends."

"What do you mean, 'so-called'?" he demanded.

"I mean," I said slowly, "that I was...let's say _underwhelmed_ by their reactions today. One would expect the so-called smartest witch of our age to understand the 'secret' that is inherent in 'secret society.'"

"Look, I deserved that," Weasley said. "Harry and Hermione have always been honest with me, even when they weren't supposed to be. I owe them the same."

"You see what I mean about debts between friends?"

Weasley growled. "This isn't about Harry and Hermione, this is about you."

"Oh, I'm charmed."

I turned away to fight with the sheets again; Weasley grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around. "Listen, Malfoy, because this is the only warning you're going to get. You _will_ be on your best behavior around Remus or one of us going to hex you so badly you'll be talking out your arsehole and shitting through your mouth."

"I'll play nicely with the werewolf if the werewolf grows some manners," I snapped.

"Remus _has_ manners, it's you that's been acting like the supreme git since we stepped in the door."

"Oh, yes, that condescending little smile of his is perfectly innocent."

"CondescJesus, Malfoy, if that's not the pot calling the cauldron black!"

"I am not condescending," I said. I tried to wrestle away from him, and the ensuing little tussle resulted in my being pinned against the wardrobe. "Get your hands off me, you stupid son of a bitch."

"If you're not condescending, what d'you call how you've been acting around Harry and Hermione?" Weasley hissed.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You've been acting like a complete lunatic since they found us," he snarled. "Like you know me better than my own fucking friends"

"What about how _they've_ been acting?" I snapped. "They tried to arrest me!"

"That's their job!"

"And you and Potter gazing into each other's eyes like a couple of...I don't know whats..."

"Harry is a Legilimens," Weasley snapped. "He was checking that I was telling the truth, it requires eye contact."

"It was disgusting."

"What the..." Weasley's eyes narrowed. "Are you _jealous?"_

"Don't be delusional!"

But Weasley was suddenly smiling, a bit grimly and altogether unpleasantly. "That's it, isn't it?" he said. "You're fucking _jealous _'cause you don't have me all to yourself anymore"

"Fuck _off,_ Weasley"

"and you have to sit around and play nice because they're helping us"

_"I said get the fuck off me!"_

"you're not in control anymore and you can't fucking _stand_ it"

What I did then was more or less completely irrationally. Rather more than less, actually. But you must understand, Weasley had me pinned against the wardrobe and he was smirking as though he'd just done something clever or funny, as though he were right, and II simply could not allow that. Weasley wasn't supposed to _win._

His body was braced against mine, and the tip of nose was millimeters from mine. There was only one way to regain the upper hand in this situation. I kissed him.

Weasley squealed and released his gripperfect. I flung my arms around his neck and thrust my tongue into his mouth, determined not to let him get away, determined to embarrass him and upset him and punish himhe stumbled over a sheet on the floor and fell backward onto the mattress, and I landed on top of him. I quickly braced my hands on his biceps, pinning him down beneath me. Perfect.

"Who's in control now, Weasley?" I whispered.

His wide eyes suddenly narrowedall the warning I got before he shoved me off. For a split second I expected him to go running out of the room in a tantrum or a panic; I certainly never expected him to roll on top of me, to plant a knee between my thighs and grab a fistful of my hair and...well.

As I said before, I don't suppose this any of your business, so I'll skip straight to the next morning, which actually has some interesting bits. However, I will allow that Weasley thoroughly answered my questionor, to get technical, he made sure I answered it myself.


	15. In which Gryffindors ruin a perfectly good plan.

As I've said before, Weasley is a snuggler. Thankfully London even in June has nothing on Alabama. Our angle relative to the orientation of the bed was rather questionable, but when I woke up buried underneath Weasley's arm, I was curiously disinclined to throw him off.

When he started to stir, though, I warned him, "If you freak out again I'm going to have to kill you."

"Mmmm?" He squirmed a bit and flopped onto his back. "...oh."

"You're such a morning person." I rolled over so that I could face him. He looked sort of charmingly groggy, and in dire need of a shave.

He looked at himself, looked at me, and sighed. "I am such a fucking idiot."

"Not that I'm disagreeing with you in general, but..."

"This is still a bad idea, for all the same reasons as before."

"And I still disagree with all your reasons for the same reasons."

"So we know where we stand." He shoved his hair out of his face. "And it's still fucked up."

I sat up against the headboard; it all would've been terribly atmospheric if one of us had been smoking a cigarette. "I still don't see why you make such a big deal out of a little sex." He raised his eyebrows at me. "Okay, rather a lot of sex. It's not a big deal."

"Don't you think this is all a bit...pathological?"

"Only because you insist on making it that way."

He rolled over and buried his face in the pillow. "I don't know why I bother talking to you sometimes."

"I have a scintillating wit and a charming personality."

He snorted into the pillows.

"Though," I said after a few moments, "the more you insist that sex with me is a horrible idea and to be avoided at all costs, the more I feel that I should be taking it at least a little bit personally."

"Do," Weasley said. "Because it _is_ personal. You're a bastard and this is fucked up."

"Weasley, let's be rational here. How, exactly, am I a bastard?"

He lifted his head up from the pillow slightly. "You are a cold-hearted, amoral, sadistic, arrogant, Slytherin bastard with control issues, how's that?"

"I do not have control issues. And the rest are matters of interpretation."

"How am I meant to interpret a bloke who doesn't lift a bloody finger until there's something in it for him? Lazy and greedy?"

"A smart businessman expects returns in proportion to his investment," I said, starting to get annoyed with him again. "And I'm not lazy."

"You would've let Greenplate and Dies carry on if it hadn't been your ticket back to England."

"I saved your life."

He sighed, and sat up. "Yeah. Which just makes this even more fucked up than ever."

"Well, my apologies, Weasley. Next time I'll remember that being rescued offends your delicate sensibilities."

"Remember what we talked about in Alabama?" he snapped. "I _owe_ you. How'm I supposed to know this isn't just you calling in a favor?"

"Because I never asked you to _jump on top of me?_" I suggested.

"You didn't stop me."

"That's not the point"

"No," Weasley said, "the _point_ is that until you convince me that you're a fucking human being, I don't want anything more to do with you than my job demands."

"What, do you think I'm a cunningly-disguised house elf or something?"

"You act like a cunningly-disguised piece of__"

Potter ruined a perfectly good argument by bursting into the room wildly. "Malfoy, I don't_Jesus fucking CHRIST!"_

"No," I said, "Weasley fucking Draco."

Weasley yanked part of a sheet into his lap. "Harry, what is it?"

Potter recovered with admirable speed. "It'sthe Ministry's found out Malfoy's here, a team of Aurors are coming to arrest him."

_"What?"_

"Tonks just owled to warn usI don't know how they found out"

Weasley jumped out of bed and started hunting for his clothes. "We have to move. Now."

"Where are we going to go?" I demanded. "O'Guin's probably got your parents' house under surveillance, the Manor may not even be standing"

"We'll live in a fucking cave and eat rats," he snapped. He glanced up at Potter. "We'll be downstairs in a minute."

"You know, Weasley," I said, as Potter all but ran away screaming, "this is why you only have two friends, this screaming and swearing all the time. Would it really kill you say 'please?'"

He flung my boxers at me head. "Move, _please."_

Granger and Potter were pacing around the hallway when Weasley finally dragged me downstairs. "How long do we have?"

"Don't know," Granger said, "They'd already left when Tonks sent the owlKingsley's with them, but we've no time to get him alone"

"How did they find us?" I asked.

"I said we have no idea," Potter snapped. "The important thing is"

"The important thing, Potter," I said, "is that somehow, certain people are getting an awfully good idea of our location despite all our best efforts to deter them. They found us in Kansas City, they found us in St. Louis, they found us in Alabama and now London and they will _keep_ finding us until they catch us, or until we figure just how the hell they know where we are!"

Granger grabbed a crumpled scrap of parchment off a table and read so quickly her irises blurred. That's not natural. "Anonymous tip," she finally declared. "Someone sent an anonymous tipbut it must be fairly convincing if they're coming out in force to search"

"No one saw us come in!" Weasley said. "I did three different search spells while Malfoy was fighting with his skirt, there was _no one_ watching."

I nodded. "The only moving thing I saw was"

Wait a minute. I had seen one thingone familiar thingPotter and Weasley were staring at memaybe

My concentration shattered when someone pounded on the door. "Open up!" someone on the other side shouted. "Ministry officials."

Granger bolted towards the door; Harry hissed "Don't answer it!" and I reached for my wand.

"No" Weasley said, "they'll have already laid down a jinx."

"So how do we get out of here?"

He glanced at the stairs down the kitchen. "If we collapse the Floo behind us..."

"There you are with the explosions again."

"...we might risk going to the Burrow."

Potter shook his head. "Your family thinks you're dead or lost in Borneo, remember? They could never keep it quiet if you suddenly popped out of the Floo with a Malfoy.'

"Excuse me, I'm right here," I snapped, but my heart wasn't in it. I was a sitting duck anywhere in England, and if Weasley were caught now he'd have a time just proving his identity, let alone the story about O'Guin and Basil....

Someone pounded on the door again, and Potter grabbed Weasley's arm. "I think there's a passageway in the cellarRemus and I just found it last year renovatingdon't know where it leads, but you could at least hide inside it until they leave."

"Does Kingsley know about it?"

"If Moody didn't find it while the Order was here, I don't think the Aurors stand a chance..."

They bolted down into the basement. I didn't follow. Instead, I thought furiouslytrapped, yet again. Escape seemed futile, and while Weasley might like to go down in a blaze of glory, that's not exactly my style. If the Aurors captured me...

More pounding. If I was captured...

I very carefully shut the door leading to the basement and sealed it with a spell. Then I crossed to the entrance hall. Granger was crouching near the door, clutching her wand to her chest and breathing shallowly. "I don't know how much longer I can hold them back," he whispered.

"No need," I said, and opened the door.

A truly massive black man in red Auror's robes was standing on the other side, and nearly pounded his fist into my face when the door disappeared. He frowned at me as I squeezed out onto the stoop. "Draco D. Malfoy?" he asked dubiously.

"Yes, that's me." I pulled the door shut, then turned back to the Aurorsabout a half-dozen or so. They were all staring at me. "Oh! Right." I put up my hands and declared loudly, "I surrender."

They stared at me some more.

"Well, come on," I said. "I haven't got all day." Any minute, I knew, Granger would let Weasley out of the cellar...

The black man backed down the front steps and nodded at me. "Dawlish. Williamson. Search him."

I began to descend the steps; the gray-haired man who'd been minding the door at the air port and another with a long ponytail surged forward and dragged me the rest of the way down to the pavement. Williamson pushed me to my knees and held me while Dawlish took my wand and frisked me. The black man stood over me, casting a seriously imposing shadow. "Are you prepared to cooperate fully with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Mr. Malfoy?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," I said, inwardly willing them to hurry the fuck up and arrest me. "I'll tell you everything I know. I don't think you'll find most of it interesting, though, quite a bit of it has to do with accounting."

The black man frowned. "Are you feeling all right, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Never better," I said smoothly.

Weasley chose that moment to burst from the front door with a war whoop to do any goblin rebel proud. He rained curses down on the Aurors and actually managed to knock one of them to the pavement; then the rest were on him, only Dawlish and the big black one staying back to cover me. For a moment all I saw was a knot of whirling limbs and flashing magic, but when it cleared, Weasley was on his knees in a headlock and Williamson was holding his wand. "You fucking _idiot,"_ I told him.

The big black man stared. "Ron?" he asked incredulously.

Weasley managed a grin despite the fact that his face was getting purple. "Hi, Kingsley," he croaked.

Kingsley shook his head and pointed his wand. "Ronald Weasley is dead," he said warily. "It was in the papers this morning"

_"We can explain everything!"_

I groaned as Potter and Granger burst from the front door, nearly tripping down the steps in their haste. "Kingsley, I'll vouch for him," Potter said desperately. "He's really Ron, this is all a big misunderstanding"

"It's a treasonous plot!" Weasley managed to yell.

I shouted at him, _"Shut up!"_

Kingsley was looking at Potter and Granger like they'd lost their minds. "Harry, were you aware that a wanted criminal was hiding out on this property?"

"No!" I shouted.

"Yes," Potter said, and I groaned again. God save me from Gryffindors! "But we can explain"

"The penalty for harboring a known criminal"

"You didn't think about penalties when you were working with Sirius!" Granger said shrilly.

I turned my attention to Weasley, who seemed to be getting his airways back. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" I shouted.

"Saving your arse!" Weasley shouted back.

"The Ministry won't let O'Guin touch me until they're done interrogating me!" I shouted back. "That would've given you plenty of time"

"I have a job"

"Fuck your job!"

"Fuck you!"

"You did!"

Dawlish yanked me to my feet, apparently readying to take me somewhere with less screaming; Kingsley, Potter and Granger were all trying to shout each other down, and Williamson was trying to revive whomever Weasley had knocked out, without much success. I glanced around the square, wondering grimly when I would ever see sunlight againand saw the cat.

The gray tabby cat with the golden eyes.

The _same_ fucking cat.

"Weasley!" I shouted as the pieces finally fell into place. _"THAT CAT WORKS FOR BASIL!"_

He wheeled his head around and saw the cat, too; a second later, it was sprinting away across the weedy square. Weasley did an astonishing thing, thenI cannot accurately describe the motion, but somehow the wizard who'd been holding him down ended up flat on his back, and Weasley was suddenly sprinting after the cat with a stolen wand. Williamson screeched and flung a few hexes at him, but Granger jumped on his back and they began to struggle. Dawlish tightened his grip on my arms, apparently as a precaution against my fleeing as well.

Weasley vanished into the alley between two houses; bright flashes of light came back out. Dueling.

There is among wizardsamong all men, I thinkan unspoken code which we learn in childhood and practice instinctively all our lives. Before you declare any man to be completely without honor, ask him whether he'd kick another man in the balls. Women do it all the time, indeed, far more often than is necessary; but men never do it to one another. It's simply understood. A man who kicks another man there is a traitor to his sex and not to be trusted. He just might do _anything._

In other words, he is a true Slytherin.

I raised one foot and drove it backward into Dawlish's crotch; his grip went sufficiently slack that I could struggle out and retrieve my wand. Granger and Williamson were still grappling, Potter was trying to argue with Kingsley while Kingsley berated the Auror Weasley had tossed; I ran for the alley almost completely unnoticed.

Weasley was crouched behind a collection of dented rubbish bins; a curse sailed by close enough to singe my ear, and I joined him there. "You idiot," he snarled.

"Feeling is mutual." I peeked over the lip of the bin to get a better look at our assailant: a witch, dark-haired, a bit on the chunky side but still sort of vaguely attractive...

She smiled when she saw me and waved. "Nice to see you again, Mr. Malfoy!"

Something clicked, and I ducked back behind the bins. "That's Calliope Kidd."

His eyes went huge. "She's supposed to be dead"

"So are you!"

I peeped up again; Kidd had her back to a chain-link fence at least twelve feet high that blocked off the entire alley. If Weasley had been smart enough to use an Anti-Apparation Jinx, she was cornered. "What's the matter, Mr. Malfoy?" she called. "Don't remember me?"

Weasley popped up behind me with a hex on his lips; Kidd countered, and they began to duel in earnest. I slumped down behind the bins and tried to concentrate. _Remember..._she had been the accountant for Greenplate and Company, she had been passing me the invoices...

A curse blasted brick into dust and sent it raining down on my head; I leapt up. "You were holding out on me!" I shouted at Kidd, while she and Weasley traded spells. "You were hiding invoicesones for Dies' company, ones I was looking for"

"Good job, Malfoy!" she replied. "I guess Toby wasn't as thorough with Obliviating you as he said."

"Tobyyou mean O'Guin? You're working with him?"

One of her curses passed Weasley close enough to draw blood, and she laughed. "Or maybe he was!"

I paced behind Weasley, the words coming out of my mouth before I even recognized them. "You were hiding the invoices, I found them, I turned a few over to O'Guin...you were angry..."

"Of course I was angry!" She blocked a particularly complex curse, but with difficulty; Weasley was winning. "I'd gone to all the trouble to separate the ones for Dies from the ones for the potions"

"You mean those potions?" But it all made sense, it really all did

Three Aurors suddenly rushed into the alley, wands drawn; one of them tried to seize Weasley and knocked him aside, another managed to disarm me. Kidd smiled gleefully and pointed her wand at me, and I had one of those odd moments of paralyzed clarity that accompany knowledge of certain deathI was never, ever going to get a chance to hurt O'Guin as badly as he deserved.

A spell flashed from Kidd's wand, a malignant yellow, hurtling towards me like a ball of fire

And then someone shouldered me aside, hard, knocking me into the pavement. I heard a woman scream, a man swear, and five different voices shout _"Expelliarmus!"_

"Who the hell is she?" Kingsley shouted.

I tried to shrug off the weight on my back. "She's the bitch behind that Draught of Heaven you seized last month," I said. "And also a jar of cinnamon. And a cat."

_"What?"_

Aurors stomped up and down the alley, Potter and Granger were shouting at Kingsley againI managed to push myself up and saw Williamson and Dawlish giving Kidd the same treatment I had gotten. I turned around to find Weasley, which was when I realized what exactly had knocked me clear of that curse.

He was laying spread eagle on the dirty pavement, eyes shut, a massive black mark in the middle of his chest. I tentatively shook his shoulder. "Weasley?"

No reaction.

"Weasley." I shook him harder, thinking that this was _really_ the worst practical joke anyone had ever played. "Come on, you stupid...idiot. They've got Kidd."

Nothing at all.

I swallowed hard, and leaned over Weasley's face. "Weasley," I whispered, "I believe you've paid me back now. For the life-saving thing. We're square. So...get up."

People shouted and argued around us, and he stayed sickeningly still.

I licked my lips and leaned closer. "Listen, Weasley. I really do like shagging you. And I still think you're insane, but...I like the shagging. And if I have to do other things so I can keep shagging you, I'll...I'll give it a try...if it's not too demeaning and you stop being so damn pushy..."

"I'll hold you do that."

I blinked. Corpses don't smile.

Weasley's eyes fluttered open, and he smirked at me, though the breath he took had an ominous gurgling quality to it. "If that's what it takes to get you to ask mushy," he wheezed, "remind me to get killed more often."

"Reckless Gryffindor son of a _bitch!"_ I said. I wasn't sure whether I'd rather kiss him or kill him. When he coughed up blood all over me, though, I decided to simply pass out.


	16. In which everything is over except that which is not.

Everything else is, of course, a matter of public recordor as public as super secret societies ever get. Except perhaps the look on O'Guin's face when, expecting to see Weasley and I in chains, he instead saw Potter and Granger hauling Kidd into detention. Oh, and the fact that I broke his nose and two of my knuckles greeting him. But that's not particularly important.

With a bit help from an Obliviator, I was finally able to give coherent testimony against Kidd and O'Guin: she had been feeding me invoices for Dies' shipments, but I discovered that she was hiding others that on cursory examination looked identicalinvoices for shipments of Draught of Heaven, though of course I didn't realize it at the time. Kidd became terribly agitated when she found out I was duplicating her secret stash and passing the copies to O'Guin, and we rowed, and then she disappeared; I was going to tell O'Guin that I suspected her death was faked when he ever so politely attacked me. A few rounds with a Legilimens (Potter, unfortunately) and several excessive doses of truth potion eventually satisfied all takers to the nature of reality, and Kidd and O'Guin were spirited away, never to be heard from again, I dearly hope.

In fact, just about everything seemed to come out all right in the end. I was liberated from Ministry custody by the Confederation in order to testify. They, grudgingly, agreed to fulfill their end of my original bargain with O'Guin; I expect any time now the British Ministry will be issuing me a full written apology on bended knee. Weasley had an extended stay in St. Mungo's while they sorted out what was making him cough up blood every hour on the hour, by when he was released we spent a solid week shagging like rabbits in his parent's attic before you S.J.F. types came and fetched us to New York to interrogate us again for God only knows what reason. I daresay we've had something like a happy ending. I'm still sending a hex to the Stiffles, though. It's the principle of the thing.

Sincerely,

Draco D. Malfoy

* * *

 

The tall, gray-haired man in the tan robes tossed the manuscript onto the table. "I have to say, Mr. Malfoy, you have a way with words."

"Thank you, Agent Dawson," said Draco Malfoy, sitting across from him.

Dawson stood and began to walk slowly around the small room. "You'll be gratified to know that Miss Kidd is going to be extradited to the United States shortly, to face charges of conspiracy, trafficking, fraud and failure to register as an Animagus."

"And O'Guin?" Malfoy asked.

"Agent O'Guin's case has been dealt with internally," Dawson said. "Unfortunately, further investigation of the potion ring andwhat did you call him? 'Basil?'that investigation has been handed over to the Americans for the foreseeable future. However, I don't believe you're in any further danger."

Malfoy snorted softly. "Comforting."

"Which leaves just one or two outstanding matters to deal with."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

Dawson leaned over the table and pushed the manuscript towards Malfoy. "It's a very stirring story you tell, Mr. Malfoy."

"I try my best."

"Very detailed, also."

"You did ask for complete descriptions."

"We didn't ask for them in narrative format."

"I felt it was the most logical way to expose the progression of events."

Dawson smiled a bit. "I'm sure," he said slowly, never taking his eyes from Malfoy, "that you're aware that your story and Agent Weasley's don't exactly match up?"

"No, actually, I wasn't."

"They diverge rather considerably in a few respects, actually."

Without batting an eye, Malfoy said, "Well, that's his lookout, isn't it?"

Dawson sighed. "Mr. Malfoy, you are a highly intelligent, highly motivated man. I like you. And I don't like having to tell you that the Ministry of Magic has declined to cancel the warrants for your arrest."

Malfoy moved for the first time during the entire interview, a subtle twitch that betrayed only a hint of emotion. "And why precisely is that?"

"Because," Dawson said, "after one agent of the S.J.F. spent three days sending their entire law enforcement department on a wild goose-chase and another assaulted several of their Aurors and smuggled a wanted criminal into the country, they're not feeling particularly kind towards the Confederation."

Malfoy nodded slowly. "I see."

"I'm sorry, for what it's worth."

"Which is very little."

Dawson came around the side of the table and leaned against it, arms crossed. "What do you intend to do now?"

"Now?" Malfoy snorted. "I suppose I shall return to my glamorous exile and my business interests here in America. Why?"

"Because there are...options."

One pale eyebrow rose nearly to Malfoy's hairline. "Options?"

_"Sodalitas Johannum Factotorum,"_ Dawson said. "Do you know what it means? 'The Brotherhood of the Jack-of-all-Trades.'"

"How charming."

Dawson began to pace again. "We seek out witches and wizards with...let's say 'unique' sets of skills. The training period can be rather lengthy, but the job itself is rewarding. And if you happened to, say, wander into Britain on assignment from time to time, the Ministry of Magic there couldn't touch you."

"If I were to join, you mean."

"If you join."

"And if I don't?"

"Well, I don't pretend to know what the life of an expat business mogul looks like, but I suppose it has its own rewards."

Malfoy was silent for several moments, then said with carefully calculated inflection, "One would think the S.J.F might be looking for someone a bit more...predictable."

"You mean someone a bit more like Agent Weasley?" Dawson smiled. "Ron is an exemplary agent, but it takes all kinds to make a super-secret society work. You might've noticed that neither of you would've survived this fiasco without the help of other."

Malfoy fell silent again for a moment, then said softly, "I'll consider it."

"That's all I ask. You can return to your room now."

Malfoy left the interrogation room and wended his way through the maze-like corridors of the ICW building; He got lost twice, but eventually located again the small suite of rooms he'd been given for the duration of his interrogation. A highly agitated Weasley nearly bowled him over as he entered.

"Did they buy it? Did they say anything?"

"Of course they bought it," Malfoy snapped. "They expect me to lie, they probably think I was embellishing the story for my own perverse gratification. Which I did, but only at the end. And just a bit."

Weasley sighed. "Thank god...wait. What happened, then?"

"Nothing happened."

"You look like you've got a pickle up your arse. What happened?"

Malfoy collapsed on the small, worn couch and shut his eyes. "The warrants are still standing."

"Oh, fucking hell..."

"And I've been offered a job."

Weasley went white and frozen; after a moment of silence, Malfoy opened one eye curiously. "That's," Weasley stammered. "That's...er...here?"

"No, Weasley, in Guinea Bissou."

"But...why?"

"Apparently I have a 'unique set of skills.'"

Weasley stared in several different directions, looking completely frazzled, and finally sat down lightly on the couch next to Malfoy. "Are you going to accept it?" he asked nervously.

"Maybe," Malfoy said, and when Weasley's breath hitched he smiled. "But there are other matters to see to before I decide."

"Like what?"

"For starters, you could investigate the alleged pickle in my arse."

Weasley blinked, then smiled. "You're a fucking lunatic," he said affectionately, and pounced.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/268871) by [azurelunatic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurelunatic/pseuds/azurelunatic)




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